What to do with coding examples of the documentation?

[Krion]

Hey,

I am trying to learn vex and programming in general and i'm going over the documentation.

I encounter a example like this:

surface
crazy(
      string maps[] = { "Mandril.rat", "default.pic" };
      export float alength = 0;
      )
{
    vector texclr, av[];

    texclr = texture(maps[s+t > 1], s, t);
    av = array( {1,0,0}, vector(nrandom()), t, texclr, {.5,0,0});

    if (fit(noise(s*8), 0, 1, .3, .7) > t)
        av = array(1, {0,1,0}, 0);

    Cf = spline("linear", s, av);
    alength = len(av);
}

from: https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/vex/arrays.html

And i don't know what to do with this. I can't really understand it by looking at it, so i want to know what it does by viewing it in Houdini.

But it doesn't show anything when i put it in a wrangle, because of course it is part of a network.

How can i see what it's doing? Do i need to guess what the network is, and create it? 

Thanks.

 

 

[kiryha]

Well, maybe it makes sense to start from something less sophisticated then and check VEX tutorials where the code is explained. As well as try to solve some very basic tasks with VEX. 

Below this example, there is a code explanation. First, you declare a nested function (called "crazy") that returns an array of textures etc, etc

Edited February 27, 2019 by kiryha