MessageLinked with specific link numbers

[Impresario Beaumont]

I have an object comprised of a large number of prims. I thought it would be more efficient to communicate with MessageLinked to each specific prim by using that prim's link number, rather than using LINK_SET and having each prim determine if the message was meant for it by filtering on the data being sent. Alas, that didn't work for me.

So I created a simple linked object of three boxes, resulting in link numbers 1, 2 and 3. In the root prim (link number 1) I placed a script that send one message to link 2 and a different message to link 3. In each of the other two prims (link # 2 and 3) I created a script that printed the message it received.

What happened is that the link 2 prim printed the prim 3 message and prim 3 printed the prim 2 message. I verified that each prim had the correct link number. 

To complicate matters further, when I added a fourth box, the second box got the fourth box's message, the fourth box got the second box's message. The third box got the correct message. I continued to add boxes and they all seem to confuse the link number for their prim with someone elses.

Any thoughts?

 

Root script:

default
{
    touch_start(integer total_number)
    {
        llMessageLinked(2, 0, "Second guy", "");
        llMessageLinked(3, 0, "Third guy", "");
        llMessageLinked(4, 0, "Fourth guy", "");  
        llMessageLinked(5, 0, "Fifth guy", "");  
    }
}
Prim with link # 2:

default
{
    link_message(integer source, integer code, string data, key ID)
    {
        llSay(0, " link 2 received: " + data);
    }
}
 

The other scripts merely change the llSay message to define the correct prim

 

[Impresario Beaumont]

oh, here are the messages:

[10:48] Object:  link 3 received: Fourth guy
[10:48] Object:  link 4 received: Second guy
[10:48] Object:  link 2 received: Fifth guy
[10:48] Object:  link 4 received: Third guy

[Quistess Alpha]

58 minutes ago, Impresario Beaumont said:

I verified that each prim had the correct link number. 

When you link prims, for the first time, pretty much all viewers have a bug where they misunderstand which links have which number. The standard fix for this bug is to take the object back into your inventory, and then rez it again. (If anyone feels like expiramenting, does re-logging or teleporting to a different region for a few minutes and then teleporting back fix the displayed numbers?)

IIRC, If you have an object with links named 1,2,3,4 and link it to an object with links named a,b,c,d the links will be ordered a,1,2,3,4,b,c,d, but your viewer will wrongly tell you they're in the order a,b,c,d,1,2,3,4 unless you do the take and re-rez trick.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Quistess Alpha

[animats]

Unfortunately, the viewer isn't told about link numbers. The messages from simulator to viewer don't have link numbers. The viewer just numbers them in the order it is told about them. Viewer side link numbers tend to agree with the simulator side link numbers, but there is no guarantee. The viewer doesn't need link numbers; it has a totally different system for identifying child prims and their parents.

Name your child prims. The viewer and simulator both have good info about names. This is mostly a problem when all the child prims are named "Object". See this old article about how to look up by name in a script.

[Impresario Beaumont]

Thank you very much for the advice, I'll pursue the named child-prims approach.

[Gayngel]

You can also look at using the linkset_data event of Linkset Data instead of link messages and filter for what data was added or changed. 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Gayngel