dynamic variables

Unity Engine
1

Hi there guys. I’m currently writing a very basic, high level language for some specific behaviours in Unity. I’m reading the commands from a text file and the user declare his variable in the form of:

name,type,value; e.g. xPosition,float,50

I’m breaking this up into seperate strings (for now), using c#, but I need to know how I can create a variable from this user text file.

Thanks

2

You can’t really create a new variable at runtime in the sense of:

float newFloat = 5;

However, what you can do is create a dictionary for each supported variable type - and add the newly created variables to the dictionary at runtime. Example:

public class ExampleClass {
	Dictionary<string, float> _userFloats;
	Dictionary<string, string> _userStrings;
	
	void AddString(string id, string value){
	
	}
	
	void AddFloat(string id, float value){
	
	}
	
	float GetFloat(string id){
		// Obviously you would want to do some sort of validation here to disable errors, and return a default value if the id is invalid so that you're whole app doesn't fail - log the error though so you know to fix the missing values
		return _userFloats[id];
	}
	
	void Parse(string stringToParse){
		// Split up the string as you currently are
		string valueType = // get your type from your split string
		string valueId = // get your id from your split string
		string valueValue = // get your value from your split string - this is a stupid name for a variable though :smile:
		
		switch(valueType){
			case "string":
				AddString(valueId, valueValue);
				break;
			case "float":
				AddFloat(valueId, float.Parse(valueValue)); // Obviously you want to catch Parse errors
				break;
			default:
				Debug.LogError("Attempted to create an unsupported value type of: " + valueType);
				break;
		}
	}
}

Obviously that’s not a perfect way to handle it, but it should give you the general idea.

1 Like
3

Thanks Kyle

Seems like that is what I need. I will chew on this a bit, but i get the general idea.

Thanks again

4

Assuming you have the exact inverse problem, how would you do it?
You have the 3 strings, you create the composite string (the name matches precisely to a declared and loaded constant) and apply it in a Vector3.
It doesn’t work…but could it work?

I know, my question is unbelievebly late and not quite on topic but , perhaps, interesting

5

Are you asking how to convert X, Y, and Z coordinates stored in strings to a Vector3? Because that’s a solved problem.

It is unbelievably late, it is extremely off topic, and unless you’re still working through 101-level programming tutorials, it is utterly uninteresting.