mIRC Scripting
mIRC: Hash Tables
mIRC Hash Tables are similar in a way to a Microsoft Excel Grid (like SQL Database). Imagine a table where the first column is the item and each column after it is your input which can be altered in many ways and manipulated as you wish.
Why use Hash Tables?
Variables, Plain Text Files, and INI Files are all stored on you computer’s Hard Drive. Hash Tables are stored on the RAM (Random Access Memory) (uses hashing search instead of linear). Your system can access the RAM much faster than you hard drive (depends on the hard drive speed), thus making the hash tables the quickest way to store information.
Creating a Hash Table
Before you can use a hash table you will need to create one:
- -- -s switch just makes mIRC disply the results in the status window.
- -- <name> is the actual name of the script.
- -- <N> is a way of making the hash table faster by setting the item limit. For example if you think you will need to enter 100 items then N will be 10. This doesn't mean you can't put 101 items in it, it just deal with the speed of the hash table.
Lets make a Channel OP Command table:
Results:
* Made hash table 'MyChanOP' (10)
This created a table called "MyChanOP" with no data.
| MyChanOP |
|---|
Add Items and Data to the table
To add data to the table we will use the following syntax:
-- -s switch is the same as the /hmake.
-- -uN just means the item will get unset after N seconds
-- -b means you are adding a &binvar data
-- <name> is the name of the Hash Table
-- <item> is the item you will refer to in the future
-- <data> is the value assigned to the item
Continue with the example from before:
/hadd -s MyChanOP OP2 James
/hadd -s MyChanOP OP3 Dave
/hadd -s MyChanOP OP4 Anna
Results:
* Added item 'OP1' to hash table 'MyChanOP'
* Added item 'OP2' to hash table 'MyChanOP'
* Added item 'OP3' to hash table 'MyChanOP'
* Added item 'OP4' to hash table 'MyChanOP'
This created 4 items in our original table. Now the table looks somthing like this:
| MyChanOP | |
|---|---|
| OP1 | Mike |
| OP2 | James |
| OP3 | Dave |
| OP4 | Anna |
Delete Items and Data from the table
To deleted data from the table we will use the following syntax:
-- -s the same as before
-- -w makes the item be Wild Matched
-- <name> is the name of the table
-- <item> is the name of the item
Continue with the example from before:
Results:
* Deleted item 'OP4' from hash table 'MyChanOP'
This deleted the item the matched the name of "OP4". Now the table looks somthing like this:
| MyChanOP | |
|---|---|
| OP1 | Mike |
| OP2 | James |
| OP3 | Dave |
Getting Items' Data from the table
The following will return the name of the table if it exists.
To get the value of the item you will use the following:
The following is used to get the name of the item without really knowing the name.
If you set 0 for <N> then it will return the total number of item in the table.
This is the same as above except this lets you access the value of the item directly without knowing the item's name.
If you set 0 for <N> then it will return the total number of data in the table.
Example:
This trigger will check if the table exists. If it does it will loop through all the items and op all the users it finds. (Although using a while loop is not quite efficient, we will use it for example purposes)
if ($hget(MyChanOP) == MyChanOP) {
var %x = 1
while (%x <= $hget(MyChanOP,0).Item) {
MODE $chan +o $hget(MyChanOP,%x).Data
inc %x
}
}
else {
MSG $chan $chr(3) $+ 2,0 * Error: MyChanOP Table Was Not Found
}
}
Saving the Hash Table
Hash Tables are a great way of storing data. However there is a small draw back, everything that is stored in a hash table is only temporary, meaning it will get deleted when you exit mIRC. This is the same as when you shut down the computer, the entire ram gets cleared.
- -- -b makes it as binary files. $cr and $lf are preserved when saving as binary files.
- -- -n saves the files as data only.
- -- -a append to an existing file instead of overwriting it.
- -- -o overwriting an existing file.
- -- -u switch forces it to include the unset items.
- -- -i switch treats the file as an ini file. You can specify an optional section name after the filename.\
Example:
We will use the following code to save the table before quitting mIRC.
Results
* Saved hash table 'MyChanOP' to 'SaveOP.txt'
Loading a Hash Table
To load a hash table we use the following syntax:
Please note: before you can use this command, you must first create the table.
- -- -b makes it as binary files. $cr and $lf are preserved when saving as binary files.
- -- -n saves the files as data only.
- -- -i switch treats the file as an ini file. You can specify an optional section name after the filename.
Deleting the Hash Table
To delete a Hash Table we use the following syntax:
Example:
Results
* Freed hash table 'MyChanOP' (10)
