Does avatar key always stay the same?

If I remember some avatar's key, will my script be able to IM that avatar indefinitely, or will the key change? I am not sure, because whenever there is talk about keys in LSL, it also refers to the sim, so I suspect the key changes if the avatar changes the sim?

Are there any solutions for mailing list managers (email newsletter to IM) by any chance?

The avatar key is always the same.

Anything copyable gets what's called an instance key, which is never the same (since keys are never reused. Say for examply you have copyable prim in your inventory. You can rez it, then rez another, and another, and another. They cannot have the same key, because each copy needs it's own individual key. So each instance gets it's own key.

You forgot about Textures, , Sounds & Animations , which if allowed by the set permissions, are copyable. Thier keys never change.

Here is the reference:

http://www.cheesefactory.us/lslwm/key.htm

Even though avatar keys do stay the same you should never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever assume they won't change at some point.

Because the possibility is there.
And the neccessity may arise.

But for the time being you are mostly safe if you assume that an avatars key won't change.

Shouldn't a variation of this be posted as a sticky! The same could be said for so many features of SL that will "never" change.

The reference to the sim is probably to do with if the agent is in the same sim as the script. The key will not change if the agent moves sims but some calls cannot use the key if the agent is not in the same sim (will return NULL_KEY).

The key will only change if LL decide to rewrite the code requiring a change of avatar keys. At which point I would hope they implement some sort of "fowarding" feature.

Uhhh. I think it is QUITE safe to depend on avatar keys remaining the same for a LONG LONG time.

It is more likely that they will totally break every other thing in LSL before they break that foundational edifice.

I agree with Talarus. Key's only change when they have to, and as far as I can tell, why would an avatar key ever need to change?

I can think of one reason, related to the reason that IM to e-mail now uses a session key instead of the av key. but it's more likely they'd disable/cripple the e-mail to av interface than muck about with changing av Keys... it'd break too many things, and be a massive headache to convert assuming it wouldn't be easier to just rebuild the entire sytem from ground up and port the old content... and believe me, if that happened... you'd have more to worry about than losing the av key...

but the point is well taken... never rely on anything that you don't have some cotrol over if you don't have to... and should go w/o saying

Your wrong.

Textures, sounds, skins and a number of other items never get their keys changed.

An avatar's key will only change when they become a linden.When that happens their key becomes undetectable or NULL_KEY.

This was already pointed out in Post #4. Generally good practice to read previous replies and not say verbatim what someone else posted. Normally wouldn't say anything but this seems to be a recurring problem.

I'm not wrong, I just mis-stated what I meant to say. Textures, sounds and animations cannot be rezzed. What I meant was that anything that can be REZZED gets an instance key. You cannot drag a sound or texture to the ground and rez it, therefore, it doesnt need an instance key. only rezzable things get an instance key, because they have to. Avatars are objects, just like prims, but they're a special case object. Any created prim can be set to copy, but avatars are not copyable ever, so they're always as if they're no transfer, ever. Therefore they can be assigned a permanent asset key rather than an instance key when they're rezzed. Textures are applied to prims, and sounds are contained in a prims inventory, hence, an instance of it is not generated, and it doesnt get an instance key, hence, it uses the asset key. Btw, skins, textures, snapshots and clothing are all the same thing.. textures, it's just a matter of how they're saved affects the inventory icon. As far as Lindens are concerned, yes, a resident who becomes a Linden has their key changed because it goes into a pool of keys set aside specifically for Lindens. Their key does NOT become NULL_KEY (How would Philip Linden IM Cory Linden if they both had a NULL_KEY for a key? Their key is simply excluded from key detection functions because a certain range of keys are excluded from being returned... (Hence the reason to change a residents key if they become a Linden.) According to w-hat.com:

a2e76fcd-9360-4f6d-a924-000000000003

is Philip Linden's key.. but...

llSay(0, (string)llKey2Name("a2e76fcd-9360-4f6d-a924-000000000003");

returns a null string... but not always, only if they so choose. I sat in front of Philip Linden 6 months ago or so, and he showed up on my avatar scanner no sweat, which means the sensor was picking up his real key, not getting a NULL_KEY returned. So they have the ability to toggle weather script functions will return real values or null values.

Residents become Lindens? Is this like some kind of mystical transubstantiation? I somehow always assumed that they just got whole new Linden identities, with maybe some special arrangements for transferring non-transferable stuff... and that their old identities were still available as an alt. No? Is there somewhere this process is described?

I think that most Lindens just create a new account for their Linden Avatar. Then when they request admin status, they are unscannable/bannable. They can turn that off though to be scanned and banned.

However, when Torley became a Linden, they just changed her last name on her account.

Actually, non-rezzable assets either used to be rezzable, or they were originally planned to be rezzable, as there are UI assets for managing them as rezzed objects, I discovered recently.

As for the keys, there really isn't much need to differentiate "instance" and "inventory" keys. They are pretty much the same thing. When you rez an object, you are creating a new inventory asset in the asset server (which is why, when the asset server is acting up, you have troubles rezzing even brand new plywood boxes, too). When you take it into inventory, you're just adding a link to it to your inventory of links (that's all an inventory is, is a collection of links to assets anyway). As such, there's really no difference between "instance" keys and asset keys. Everything that exists has an asset key.

Right, I know a key is a key, the difference is an instance key is a temporary key, whereas an asset (or inventory) key is a key that'll never change. I'm guessing when you create an object, as you take it into your inventory, the permanent asset key is assigned (unless you modify it, and re-take it, then a new key is generated).