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Events ​

Events are the primary method of communication between the client and the server. Events are also what is exposed to the developer from Zap's generated API.

Defining Events ​

Events are defined in your config file using the event keyword.

As you can see they have four fields. Let's go over them one by one:

from ​

This field determines which side of the game can fire the event. It can be either Server or Client.

At this time Zap does not support two way events. As events have almost no overhead, feel free to add more events instead of using two way events.

type ​

This field determines the type of event. It can be either Reliable or Unreliable.

  • Reliable events are guaranteed to arrive at their destination in the order they were sent.
  • Unreliable events are not guaranteed to arrive at their destination, and they are not guaranteed to arrive in the order they were sent. Unreliable events also have a maximum size of 900 bytes.

call ​

This field determines how the event is listened to on the receiving side.

  • ManyAsync events can be listened to by many functions, and they are called asynchronously.
  • ManySync events can be listened to by many functions, and they are called synchronously.
  • SingleAsync events can be listened to by one function, and they are called asynchronously.
  • SingleSync events can be listened to by one function, and they are called synchronously.

DANGER

Synchronous events are not recommended, and should only be used when performance is critical.

  • If a synchronous event callback yields it will cause undefined and game-breaking behavior.
  • If a synchronous event callback errors it will cause the packet to be dropped.

Use synchronous events with extreme caution.

data ​

This field determines the data that is sent with the event. It can be any Zap type.

  • If the event does not require any data, the data field should be excluded.
  • Parameter names and parentheses are optional to preserve backwards compatibility. If parantheses are excluded, the event can only have one unnamed parameter.