Wiley-World.of.Warcraft.Programming.A.Guide.and.Reference.for.Creating.WoW.Addons

Chapter 11 ■ Exploring the World of Warcraft API 197The pipe (|) character is used in World of Warcraft as an escape character,much like Lua itself uses the backslash (\). The hyperlink begins with a |H,followed by the data for the hyperlink. In the case of item links, this is just theitem string itself. The data ends with |h, followed by the text that is actuallydisplayed in the hyperlink, including the left and right brackets. The hyperlinkends with a final |h. To color the link, you can wrap it using color codes.For example, a script that can print a hyperlink for your Hearthstone mightlook like this:print(“|cffffffff|Hitem:6948:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0|h[Hearthstone]|h|r“)The color code for white is specified, the hyperlink data is included, and thetext of the link itself follows. You may encounter different types of hyperlinksin your exploration of the WoW API, but you won’t find yourself creatingthem very often. More often than not, when you need a hyperlink you simplyquery the API and use whatever is returned.Using the Item APIOnce you have an item identifier, the item API is simple to use. In particularyou are concerned with the GetItemInfo() function, which takes in such anidentifier and returns the following:name—The name of the item.link—A hyperlink for the item.quality—Quality (rarity) level of the item.iLevel—Internal level of the item.reqLevel—Minimum character level required to use or equip the item.class—Localized name of the item’s class/type.subclass—Localized name of the item’s subclass/subtype.maxStack—Maximum stack size for the item (that is, largest number ofitems that can be held in a single bag slot).equipSlot—Non-localized token identifying the inventory type of theitem.texture—Pathtoanicontexturefortheitem.vendorPrice—Price an NPC vendor will pay to buy the item from theplayer.We are only concerned with the item’s name, which is the first return fromthe function. You will use this to sort the items once you’ve finished scanning.To prevent against item scanning, where someone tries to get informationabout items that aren’t yet in the game, this function returns only informationabout those items that the player has seen. In particular, the item must exist inthe player’s local item cache.