ZScript Language

ZScript is a scripting language that has sprung from the ceasing of ZDoom and the subsequent reprisal of GZDoom as mainline. It is similar to Java, though it has many deficiencies, oddities and other such issues. Despite this, it is still the most powerful Doom modding tool since plainly editing the source code.

This documentation serves as an introduction to and informal specification of the ZScript language from a programmer's viewpoint. It should also be useful for non-programmers looking for specifics on the inner workings of the language and more information on the functions and properties provided to it.

ZScript runs in a virtual machine much like ACS, although because it is not compiled to bytecode and uses an object-oriented structure, the virtual machine is far more complex, and also therefore quite a bit slower. ZScript may only be read from source files by the engine, which has several benefits as well as detriments.

Reading This Document

This document's syntax definitions are written to be easy to read but still close enough to a formal syntax that, for instance, someone writing a parser could do so off of this document. Here is a legend describing all syntax element spellings:

Some example syntax definitions would be:

ExampleElement

keyword SomeKeyword (, SomeKeyword)? ;

SomeKeyword

• example
• example2
• example3

Which would mean, in a ZScript file, you could write things like:

keyword example;
keyword example2, example3;