Reading Files

[Phenomena]

Hey there this is my first attempt at writing an AddOn for WoW. So I started out with the basic "Hello World!" and now I'd like to expand on that, instead of just having the function output a predefined string how could I make it output the string from a .txt file?

[Seerah]

WoW cannot read from text files.

[dewin]

Originally Posted by Seerah WoW cannot read from text files.

To build on that:

To avoid any sort of scripting/etc, Blizzard tries really hard to prohibit communications between addons and the 'outside world'.

The closest think you can do to communication with the outside world is having an outside app read/write an addon's savedvariables file, but that will only kick in while logged out of WoW and (possibly) during reload UI. This is how some data miners work, such as the census app, Thott, etc.

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by dewin To build on that: To avoid any sort of scripting/etc, Blizzard tries really hard to prohibit communications between addons and the 'outside world'.

I think it has more to do with security than anything else. If you cannot read/write files or open sockets from an addon, you cannot harm the users computer (ok I suppose you can try to overheat their CPU by calculating the last digit of Pi, but other than that...)

[Seerah]

No, not just security... Also botting, etc.

[Duugu]

Originally Posted by Vyper If you cannot read/write files or open sockets from an addon, you cannot harm the users computer

What's about ... uhmm ... buffer overflows or similar stuff?

[MoonWitch]

Originally Posted by Vyper (ok I suppose you can try to overheat their CPU by calculating the last digit of Pi, but other than that...)

Originally Posted by Duugu What's about ... uhmm ... buffer overflows or similar stuff?

Ooooh, I feel my evil side emerge :P

[Duugu]

I'm your father, Luke.

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by Duugu What's about ... uhmm ... buffer overflows or similar stuff?

In theory, in a memory managed language like lua a buffer overflow is not a possibily, especially if you look at how lua tables work (they're not normal arrays). Now do I gaurentee there is not a bug in the WoW implementation that makes something like that possible? Of course not! However there shouldn't be . Also since addons are run in the WoW memory space, the OS should be preventing access to any memory outside of WoW, again leaving the (theoretical) worst they can do even if such a bug exists as crashing WoW.