Animation-CobOverview

What is COB?

COB is the Spring engine's scripting system. Each unit has a .cob bitfile which defines many of its major behaviors, including animation and weapon aiming. Of course, COB is also capable of doing a lot more if you wish. When Spring is actually running, it interprets the bitfile for each unit as necessary. This interpreter runs in a very straightforward way, without any fancy optimizations, so don't expect great performance from it.

BOS

The code that gets compiled into a .cob is written in a .bos file. A program called Scriptor generally does this compilation. BOS uses a C-like syntax, although it has many Spring-specific features and isn't as powerful as C.

BOS versus C

Similarities:

• Function syntax. A function is defined by FunctionName(args).
• Block delimiters. Like C, a statement block is delimited by curly braces ({}).
• General syntax. For example, to add two variables and assign the result to a third, you say x = y + z;

Differences:

• Not case sensitive.
• Only one data type. There is only one type of data in COB, which is basically a 32-bit integer.
• Variable declaration.

You can declare a static variable, whose scope encompasses the entire script, using

static-var x;

You can declare multiple variables at once by separating them with commas.

Alternately, you can declare a local variable:

var x;

The scope is limited to the function that it is in.

• No pointers or arrays.
• No internal return values. When the script receives a callin, it may return a value to the "outside"; however, there is no way to return a value directly to another function within the script. You will have to use a static variable.
• Function calls.

Functions are called using

call-script Function(args);

or

start-script Function(args);

See COB-Threads for details.

• Multiple threads. This isn't as exciting as it sounds. Again, see COB-Threads for details.
• Spring-specific features. There are too many here to name; please consult the other COB articles.

Further information

Greater detail can be found on the following pages

• Animation-CobExamples
• Animation-CobAnimation
• Animation-CobCallins
• Animation-CobConstants
• Animation-CobHitByWeaponID