Cheat Engine

[myocytebd2]

How to get $c compilation warning, and link errors, and gcc "-Wall"/msvc "/W3"?

C code can compile outside CE, but due to platform difference, real warnings in CE are always better.
Therefore I would like to have compilation warnings, and "enable all warnings" option.

1. By manually injecting syntax errors, some nearby compilation warning is also shown in the error dialog.
But is that all warnings?
2. Where are the link error messages?
It is depressing to enable AA and fails without error message (apparently link errors).
With AA only, it is OK as the only error I saw is undefined label.
With $c it is trickier, and even undefined symbol is less obvious to catch.

Some errors happened to me:
Undeclared symbol slipped due to lack of compile warnings.
Hard time bisecting silent failure, e.g. due to include math.h (maybe ABI problem?)

[myocytebd2]

It seems that CE may randomly fail to enable/disable some dependent AA scripts (fails to guarantee order?), which makes the lack of linking errors even worse.

This mostly affects $c, since AA memory and symbols can be made persist, while $c cannot.

Plus that:
(ia32) $c cannot link AA symbol as global variable;
(instead of access AA.sym, $c makes a c variable with value AA.sym)
(ia32) AA cannot use $c symbol in same AA script.

It seems that the best workaround for now is to declare tons of global pointers in a root-most $c, and do poor-man's "linking" by indirect access through those global pointers (or forget $c and use dll).

[Dark Byte]

don't forget to reset the symbols in the symbolhandler if you had a previous test where you kept the symbols (clicked yes), as those symbols will become part of the searchable symbols (which is a known issue but not as bad as you'd think)

you can do that in userdefined symbols and then reset the groups

[myocytebd2]

I would like to suggest to change the way $c links:
Missing symbols should always be allowed for $c.
Let CT script record toggle as long as $c compiles.

If missing symbols are allowed, $c could really get the benefit of CE live editing and normal C.

It could be implemented in two ways:
A. Re-link _all_ enabled $c blocks in the traditional way, on any CT script toggling.
B. Incrementally link missing symbols in a custom way.

Traditional linking conflicts with CE that there is no single timing of the linking.
Current way is event worse:
It contradicts with normal C because it is impossible to link multiple $c together.
As a result, it also contradicts with CE live editing due to the extra dependence requirement.

[Dark Byte]

extern means that this is just a type definition, but that the actual veriable is declared elsewhere. Which can be either in the local script, or in another object file

the auto assembler and c parts generate 2 different object files, so for the c part to reference the autoassembler symbol, the symbol has to be defined as extern so when the AA script and C script get linked together the C part knows that the variable is not inside the C script, but should be looked for elsewhere, like in the accompanied AA object, or in global symbols

[myocytebd2]

[Dark Byte]

B is the way to go, kinda (needs extern), but there is an issue that symbols get registered, even if they are shadow values for extern linkage, and that c objects get scanned from newest to older

But since normal registers take precedence over symbolgroups you can already bypass that bug (till next version where these symbols are not registered anymore)

this setup works:

[myocytebd2]

[myocytebd2]