Prev: Calling Functions
receiver.message(arg1, arg2, ...)You may omit receiver, in which case it is assumed to be the current object. Otherwise, receiver must be an expression of dbref or frob type, and message an identifier giving the name of the message. arg1, arg2, ... are the arguments to be sent with the message. The arguments are evaluated from left to right. You must include the parentheses around the argument list, even if there are no arguments. The result of a message expression is the value returned by receiver's method for the message message.
If receiver is a frob, then the message is sent to the frob's class object, with the frob's representation inserted as the first argument. If receiver is a dbref, then the message is sent to the object with that dbref.
If receiver is not an object or frob, then the interpreter
throws a ~type error. If receiver is a dbref which does
not refer to an existing object, or if it is a frob whose class is not
an existing object, then the interpreter throws an ~objnf
error. If receiver does not have a method defined for
message, then the interpreter throws a ~methodnf error.
See Errors for information on how to handle errors.
Here are some examples of message expressions:
.tell("I don't see that here.");
$sys.wizards()
loc.tell_contents(args[1]);
You can substitute an arbitrary expression for message, by
enclosing it in parentheses. The syntax for sending an arbitrary
message is:
receiver.(message-expression)(arg1, arg2, ...)As before, receiver can be omitted, in which case it is assumed to be the current object. message-expression must be an expression of symbol type, or the expression will cause a
~type error. You
must include the parentheses around the argument list, even if there are
no arguments.
In order to prevent incidents of infinite recursion, Coldmud has a
maximum calling depth for messages. This maximum depth is 128
method calls in the current version. If sending a message would exceed
the maximum calling depth, the interpreter raises a ~maxdepth
error.