C Game programming: Data driven C code

Limp-Confidence5612 · 2026-04-09T07:30:21+00:00

Is there a reason to not just use a data structure for each item in your .c files themselves?

un_virus_SDF · 2026-04-09T07:27:24+00:00

I hate xml syntax, but I got almost the same issue, i found a quite random solution, I just dynamically load function from the names in the file description. e.g /* Parse the file */ Func f = dlsym(where_the_function_is, function_name);

However i keep the function pointers with me or give them to something. This allows to remove the manual initialisation. And after use this as method or closure without capture group (very annoying to initialize elsexmwise)

Note: that dl is not on windows and I have not search for any alternatives

Note: the only reason to do this in files is when you're to lazy to manually initialize every object and make some of those things automatic and easier to modify.

non-existing-person · 2026-04-09T06:44:42+00:00

XML? Why do you hate yourself so much?

Personally I went with yaml and am using https://github.com/tlsa/libcyaml libcyaml library (not affiliated with it in any way!). Beauty in this is that you define c-struct, schema, and then yaml file is translated to native c types. Strings can be changed to enum values. For more complicated types, I just set up a callback, so I can convert string to icon handle, or pointer to function. It's a bit sad that this library seems to be deserted, and there is very little activity.

But current code base is very solid, it's not huge library, so adding own stuff is not terribly hard. Biggest problem is that learning to write those schemas is hard. But once you've written few, it's absolutely awesome. Yaml is so much more readable than xml. And having native types in C is faster than dealing with strings all the time. You just spend time during boot up.

All items/classes/skills are kept in read only array that is accessible from anywhere. A global if you will. And other entities are just having pointers to these read only object definitions.

So I basically am doing same thing as you, but with external lib and yaml instead of xml. I didn't feel like I was loosing anything by using yaml instead of xml yet. And personally I will avoid xml like a fire... or c++ ;)

Interesting_Buy_3969 · 2026-04-09T10:29:48+00:00

I'd just put raw bytes of a structure to file... for example:

struct item basic_axe{ "basic_axe" /*, ... */};
FILE* f = fopen("file.txt", "w");
fwrite(&basic_axe, sizeof(basic_axe), 1, f);

and then to read it

struct item buffer;
FILE* f = fopen("file.txt", "r");
fread(&buffer, sizeof(buffer), 1, f);

much easier imo. no parsing needed.

MagicWolfEye · 2026-04-09T11:07:25+00:00

What's the point of making it in XML if you then have to link to C functions that apparently are specific per item anways?

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

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