SL Updating Scripts
When I started scripting in Second Life, I quickly realized that I would have many dozens of objects that used the same script. This script would need to be updated in all of those objects repeatedly, not something I was looking forward to doing manually. While it would be ideal if multiple objects could reference the same script from a single location, that option is not available.
The next best option was to push the updated script from a central script server object to the client objects. A single script could handle serving the script using llRemoteLoadScriptPin(). This function pushes the specified script to an object with a specified key. If all of the objects that needed the script had the same name, then the central script could query those objects by name and create a list of their keys.
Not so fast. There is no function to return a list of object keys based on name or any other criteria aside from linkage. Due to the distances involved, linking was not an option. I certainly didn’t want to maintain a list of keys for the objects manually. And of course, the client object getting the script would need to have a matching pin number set for llRemoteLoadScriptPin() to work. Both of these issues meant that a client script was also required.
It’s easy enough to set the pin in the client script using llSetRemoteAccessPin(). However, how would the server script get the key of the client object? The client script needs to provide it. Not unlike an HTTP or FTP request, the client would need to request the script via chat and the server object, listening for the request, could provide the requested script back to the requesting object.
This created another issue: How is the client request initiated for each of dozens of objects? I added a listener to the client script that would listen for a specific chat command from my avatar on a private channel. This way, I could update objects within 20 meters via chat or objects up to 100 meters away via shout. This system has worked fairly well and only requires about 3 shouts to update the client scripts scattered across an entire region.
I also considered creating a single point of activation at the server. This could be done by adding another listener to the server which would broadcast an update request region-wide, prompting all of the clients in the region to request an update.
- Avatar to Server: hey server, broadcast update request to region
- Server to Region: if you can hear me, it’s time to update
- Client to Server: hey server, please send me this script
- Server to Client: sends script
I didn’t have the need to implement this by the end of this project, but may do so right at the beginning of my next SL project.
I have also added code to each script that queries the object name and prevents of the script from running if it’s located on the script server. This will avoid potentially wacky behavior that might result from various scripts running on the server.
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