ETCH

ETCH is a CAOS command which controls flow.

Usage
Syntax: ETCH family (int) genus (int) species (int)

This marks the start of an enumeration loop, which must be ended by NEXT. It cycles through every agent which matches the classifier AND is touching the OWNR object. Whether one agent 'touches' another is decided if their bounding boxes are touching. ETCH first sets TARG, then evaluates the content of the loop, then goes on to the next agent, and so on until all agents of the given class number that are touching the object have been exhausted. In install scripts, when there is no OWNR, TARG is used instead.

Any or all of the arguments may be 0, which is a wildcard. So ETCH 0 0 0 will loop through all agents touching that object.

At the end of the loop, TARG is set to OWNR - so store the original TARG somewhere else if it's important.

Examples
For example, the capillata's doors use ETCH to STIM WRIT all creatures who went through the door with the "went through meta door" stim if the pointer activated the door: inst doif from = pntr etch 4 0 0 doif targ <> hhld and carr = null and aslp = 0 and dead = 0 mvft va00 va01 stim writ targ 95 1 endi next else doif touc ownr from = 1 inst doif from <> null targ from mvft va00 va01 stim writ targ 95 1 setv va99 0 endi endi endi Helen's Cob Creation Tutorials covers the ETCH concept in tutorial 7.
 * Only transfers all touching creatures if the pointer activated the door,
 * if it wasn't the pointer then it only transfers the creature that touched it.