I read somewhere about putting your constant variables in text file and reading them at run time, and setting the constants that way... Is this possible? If so how would you go about this? I didn't think you could do this...

Thanks!

The approach I use to externalizing variables is creating a structure that holds a name string and, for example, a value like a float or a double.

At program start code, I initialize all these 'variable' structures using calls that take a name, and a default value, and returns either a pointer to the new structure added to the linked list of 'variables' or an index into an array of variable structures.

Then, I load any existing config text file, and parse it so that the first part is the name of the variable, and the second part is the value. Do a search for each variable by name, set its new value, and then continue with initialization and then entering the main engine loop.

At shutdown, I dump all those variables out back to the same text file - this allows for anything in the engine, like a user interface, a console system, etc.. to modify those variables and have their changes saved.

The variable structures themselves can then be used inplace of constants.. eg:

typedef struct
{
    char name[MAX_VARNAMECHARS];
    float value;
} var_t;

...

var_t *player_speed, *player_jumpvel, *player_friction;

...


void Init()    // setup stuff, create variables.. etc
{
    player_speed = variable_create("player_speed", "300");
    player_jumpvel = variable_create("player_jumpvel", "400");
    player_friction = variable_create("player_friction", "0.9");

    ...

    // load any config, set variables to previous values
    // otherwise use defaults..
    variables_setwithtextfile("variables.txt");
}

..


void Refresh()
{
    ...

    if(player_keys[KEY_FORWARD])
    {
        player_velocity += player_movespeed->value * player_forwardvector;
    }

    if(player_keys[KEY_JUMP] && player_onground)
    {
        player_velocity.z += player_jumpvel->value;
    }

    ...

    // please don't actually use any of this code
    player_velocity *= player_friction->value;
}

This is an elementary explanation of a console-variable type system. This pseudo code is purely for demonstration purposes of using a variable-structure for labeling values for manipulation by their names. I left out the part that manages the variables themselves, because it should be simple enough to construct, and thought that showing a demonstration of such a system's use would convey what it would be responsible for doing.

Good luck.

Thank you all for your input on the topic. Greatly appreciated.

I load most of my variables from file. Currently rewriting some code to make it more flexible.

There was an article on GameDev.net awhile back: TweakVal

It automatically loads changes to your source files as the game is running, updating your 'constants'. I haven't actually tried it though.

It looks like there is an updated version on github, if you google.

Mostly I just load values from config files.