An Introduction to Squirrel

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Overview

This is a relatively brief beginner's guide to the Squirrel language (v3.2) aimed at people with no programming experience interested in trying their hand at VScript. The only prerequisite knowledge you are expected to have is basic knowledge of the Source engine (entities, I/O system, etc). While in theory this guide is not technically specific to any Source game in particular, it is for version 3.2 which is unique as TF2's version of Squirrel. L4D2, Portal, and other Source games run on older versions, so in practice this guide is directed at TF2 players. If you're following this guide for another Source game that's perfectly fine, just be aware that some features may not function or behave differently in your game's version of Squirrel.

If you already have experience with C-like languages or programming in general I would recommend you visit the Squirrel Reference Manual for a more expedited learning experience aimed at developers.


Getting Started

While it's possible to compile the Squirrel source code into binaries with which you can test your code outside of a Source game, simply launching a game and executing your script is much simpler and allows us to test game specific code, so that's what we'll do for the duration of the guide. For guides on VScript itself, the VDC has an excellent collection:

Keywords and Identifiers

Constants

Comments

Data Types

Literals and Operators

Expressions

Intro to Functions

Intro to Objects

Scope

Control Flow

Exceptions

Enums

Arrays

Tables

Functions

Generators

Delegation

Weak References

Classes

Inheritance

Metamethods