execVM

Description

Compiles and adds an SQF script to the scheduler queue and returns script handle (see also #Example 4). The script does not execute immediately upon running execVM command but with some delay depending on the VM's scripts queue and engine load.

Note

If the same script is to be executed more than one time, declaring it as a Function is recommended to avoid recompiling and wasting performance with every execution.

The script is searched for in the following directories in that order:

mission directory

campaign scripts directory

global scripts directory.

To see what VM scripts are currently in the scheduler, use diag_activeSQFScripts command.

Important

The .sqf file extension is not mandatory but is strongly recommended as using non-standard extensions may cause problems during binarisation

If the script file is not prepared using UTF-8 encoding and contains some characters with codes > 127, they might convert incorrectly.

Syntax

Syntax 1

arguments execVM filename

Parameters:

arguments: Anything - arguments accessible as _this in the script
filename: String - path to the SQF script file

Returns: Script Handle

Syntax 2

execVM filename

Parameters:

filename: String - path to the SQF script file

Returns: Script Handle

Examples

Example 1

execVM "test.sqf";

Example 2

_handle = player execVM "test.sqf";
waitUntil { scriptDone _handle };

The following is also possible in Arma 3:

private _handle = execVM "123.sqf";
waitUntil { isNull _handle };

Example 3

[player, 0.75] execVM "setDamage.sqf";

setDamage.sqf:

params ["_unit", "_damage"];
_unit setDamage _damage;

Example 4

execVM equivalence:

private _handle = _args execVM "someFile.sqf";
// is practically identical to
private _handle = _args spawn compile preprocessFileLineNumbers "someFile.sqf";