[bibu]

I found two topics about that and just couldn't get it to work. The string is always empty for me somehow...

It is not a cvar to retrieve. It's individual for each player:

PHP Code:

new szPMsg[32][33]

public native_get_user_pmessage(id, szBuffer[], iLen)
{
    new szBuffer[32]
    //for testing purpose
    get_user_name(id, szBuffer, 31)
     new len
    len = format(szBuffer,31,szBuffer)
    return len
    //return szBuffer
    //return szPMsg[id]
} 


[fysiks]

You either need to switch to style 0 or you need to properly handle byref parameters as noted in the documentation:

PHP Code:

/* Registers a NATIVE.  When a plugin uses your native (you should distribute a .inc),
 * the handler will be called with two parameters: the calling plugin id, and the
 * number of parameters.
 * If you set style=1, the method of parameter passing is a tad more efficient.
 * Instead of "id, numParams", you label the native exactly as how the parameters
 *  should, in theory, be sent.  Then for each byreference parameter, you call
 *  param_convert(num).  This is theoretically more efficient but quite hacky.
 *  The method was discovered by dJeyL, props to him!
 */
native register_native(const name[], const handler[], style=0); 


[Backstabnoob]

I think you can also simply return the string pointer with return szBuffer, but I don't clearly understand how this works so I'm not sure.

[fysiks]

Originally Posted by Backstabnoob I think you can also simply return the string pointer with return szBuffer, but I don't clearly understand how this works so I'm not sure.

Strings must be passed byref, there are no pointers. So, the value that you use with the "return" keyword will be the value returned by the function (IIRC).

[Backstabnoob]

This works so I don't see why a native wouldn't:

PHP Code:

get_user_name2( id )
{
   new szName[ 32 ]
   get_user_name( id, szName, charsmax( szName )
   return szName
}

client_print( id, print_chat, "Your name is %s.", get_user_name2( id ) ) 


[NiHiLaNTh]

whats wrong with set_string?

[klippy]

Originally Posted by fysiks Strings must be passed byref, there are no pointers. So, the value that you use with the "return" keyword will be the value returned by the function (IIRC).

There is actually some kind of pointers(not really), but I am afraid it will bunch up in memory since it allocates every time. Actually, i don't know if this works, never tried it, but it should.
In native function do something like:

PHP Code:

public native_return_string()
{
       return engfunc(EngFunc_AllocString, "test_string");
} 


And in the calling plugin function type something like:

PHP Code:

public calling_function()
{
       new pString = native_return_string();
       new szString[32];
       engfunc(EngFunc_SzFromIndex, pString, szString, charsmax(szString));
} 


As i said, I don't know if this will allocate more memory every time you use it, and if it does, is there anyway to free the memory allocated with EngFunc_AllocString? Another thing I don't know is how efficient(fast) this will be.

[Backstabnoob]

Originally Posted by NiHiLaNTh whats wrong with set_string?

There's nothing wrong with set_string, it just copies the string to the output, although this discussion kinda turned into something different.

[fysiks]

Originally Posted by NiHiLaNTh whats wrong with set_string?

That is only used for style=0 IIRC. He is using style=1.

[hleV]

Before using szBuffer, you need to do

param_convert(2); // 2 being the parameter number.