-- CODE BY !nullptr (aka SisterMatic) - please credit - not fussed - just don't call it your code :)

-- OVERVIEW
-- In a Steam discussion recently (May 2015) Lee (Bamber) posed the idea of using the entity name as a variable "carrier" and parsing the name
-- to have access to entity "variables". Since not having a variable list to play with has been a bugbear of mine I thought it was 
-- time to code something up to do just what Lee suggested. After a couple of hours I managed to hack this together. 

-- Herein is a working "entity name variable passer parser".

-- USAGE
-- For this example I used barrels (see images) and attached this script to it (make sure it is active)
-- Use a name for the barrel with each variable in the NAME properties seperated by non-alpha numeric chars. This was tested using space, colon and hyphen.
-- EG: b1:h20:s7 or b1 h20 s7 or b1-h20-s7 etc...Other combos should work OK, I leave that to the scripter
-- In this example I have used b1-h100-s20 as a barrel name. (see images for others) This will give me 3 variable names with 3 different values (as you can see).
-- NOTE: A bag of chips could be chips20
 
 -- 95% of the code in this example is taken up with display text so you can see the workings.
 -- I have included how you might call a function based on the variable name including the value passed

-- KNOWN ISSUES
-- Not so much an issue as something to watch for. if you have 2 (or more) entities within range of PlayerDist then each entity will be queried simultaneously.
-- you will need to isolate/seperate/distance the entities if you do now want this. 
-- Where is has value and this is an example of it, I intend to rewrite my tree shade script and I can combine the values of multiple entities without carrying or
-- querying a tree array - which is how I previously did it. 


my_object_name = {}

function objtest_init_name(e,name)
  
  my_object_name[e] = name
  strIDX = {}
end  

function objtest_main(e)
  PlayerDist = GetPlayerDistance(e)
  -- if you shorten the distance you are less likely to get "reads" from multiple entities. (see known issues)
  if GetPlayerDistance(e) <= 150 then
    parseObj(my_object_name[e])
  end  
end

function parseObj(s)
 -- set array
 local tbl = {}
 -- set array index
 local tblIDX = 1

 local y = 10 -- debug display position only - can delete

  -- capture all sub parts of the string seperated by **NON** alphanumeric - eg: spaces or punctuation etc can be used as delimiters
  -- tested with colon (:) and space ( ) and hyphen (-) and works fine
  for i in string.gmatch(s, "%w+") do --Where "%w+" is the alphanumeric string pattern.
    tbl[tblIDX] = i
    tblIDX=tblIDX+1
  end
   
  -- IMPORTANT NOTE: tblIDX is 1 more than it should be due to last call in loop. Decrement to avoid confusion
  tblIDX = tblIDX - 1
  
  -- ****************
  -- debug - display the strings we have
   TextCenterOnX(50,y,1,"We have "..tblIDX.." var strings derived from the entity name of "..s)
   for i=1, tblIDX, 1 do  
      y=y+3
     TextCenterOnX(50,y,1,tbl[i])
   end -- debug display  
  -- **************** 
  
  -- set these in case we do not get a return from string.match
  local varName = ""
  local varValue = ""
  
  y = y + 5 -- debug display only
  for i=1, tblIDX, 1 do  
    varName = string.match(tbl[i], "%a+") -- capture the alpha 
    varValue = string.match(tbl[i], "%d+") -- capture the numeric
  
   -- THE EXAMPLE PART NOW WE HAVE THE STRING SUBSETS
   -- We are using a barrel with the name set as **b7-h100-s20**. Other barrels are different and show accordingly.
    
  --**************** THE PLAY AREA ******************  
    if varName == "b" then
      TextCenterOnX(50,y,1,"This is a BARREL. It's number is "..varValue)
      y=y+3
      -- make an example function call for this entity
      doBarrel(varValue,y) -- pass y just for formatting purposes on text display
      y=y+3
    elseif varName == "h" then
      TextCenterOnX(50,y,1,"This is the 2nd variable of our barrel. It's value is "..varValue)
      y=y+3
    elseif varName == "s" then
      TextCenterOnX(50,y,1,"This is the 3rd variable of our barrel. It's value is "..varValue)
      y=y+3
    else  -- display everything not queried
      TextCenterOnX(50,y,1,"My variable name is "..varName.. " with a value of "..varValue.. ". Cool huh?")
      y=y+3
    end  -- play area 
  end -- for  
end -- func parseObj

-- example function call
function doBarrel(varValue,y)
   TextCenterOnX(50,y,1,"This is the BARREL FUNCTION CALL. The value passed is "..varValue)
end -- doBarrel