Extension Methods and being Static

Questions & Answers
1

I made a class, but I have an issue.
I want to write an extension method to parent objects, and to have it be accessible by simply writing gameobject.parent (blah blah). In addition, I wanted to write a debug file that would be useful helping me troubleshoot why my player prefs don’t appear to be saving. However, I can’t do this because when I tried to use static methods, Unity said extension methods must be in a static class. Fair enough (but since static can’t inherit, I’m not sure how it expects mono to work).

The problem is that even after becoming static, I STILL can’t access any of the extension methods or members of the class.

Here is the code:
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public static class ExtensionMethods
{
    
    /// <summary>
    /// Parents the game object, then resets the local rotation, position, and scale
    /// </summary>
	static void ParentResetTransform(this GameObject gameobject, GameObject parentObject, GameObject childObject)
	{
		childObject.transform.parent = parentObject.transform;
		childObject.transform.localRotation = Quaternion.identity;
		childObject.transform.localPosition = Vector3.zero;
		childObject.transform.localScale = Vector3.one;
	}
    
    /// <summary>
    /// Parents the game object without changing anything
    /// </summary>
	static void Parent(this GameObject gameobject, GameObject parentOb, GameObject childOb)
	{
		childOb.transform.parent = parentOb.transform;
	}

    /// <summary>
    ///  Checks to see what particle system it is, then sets all particles to a designated layer
    /// </summary>
	static void SetSortingLayer(this GameObject gameobject, string sortingLayer)
	{
		ParticleRenderer[] renderers = gameobject.GetComponentsInChildren<ParticleRenderer>();
		if (renderers.Length != 0)
		{
			for (int i = 0; i < renderers.Length; i++) 
			{
				renderers*.sortingLayerName = sortingLayer;*

  •  	}*

  •  }*

  •  ParticleSystemRenderer[] systems = gameobject.GetComponentsInChildren<ParticleSystemRenderer>();*

  •  if(systems.Length != 0)*

  •  {*

  •  	for (int i = 0; i < systems.Length; i++)* 

  •  	{*

_ systems*.sortingLayerName = sortingLayer;_
_ }_
_ }_
_ }*_

///


/// Takes a number of strings and looks for a corresponding playerprefs key then prints the value as a string to the console
///
static void DebugPlayerPrefs(params string[] playerprefsKey)
{
string printToLog = string.Empty;
string output = string.Empty;
foreach (string keystring in playerprefsKey)
{
if (PlayerPrefs.HasKey(keystring))
{
string debugStandard = string.Format("Playerprefs.{0} is: ", keystring);
output = (PlayerPrefs.GetFloat(keystring).ToString());
if (output != “0.0”)
{
printToLog += (debugStandard + "a float that is " + output + "
");
}
output = (PlayerPrefs.GetInt(keystring).ToString());
if (output != “0”)
{
printToLog += (debugStandard + "an int that is " + output + "
");
}
output = PlayerPrefs.GetString(keystring);
if (output != “”)
{
printToLog += (debugStandard + "a string that is " + output + "
");
}
}
}
Debug.Log(printToLog);
}
}
As always, thank you for your time.

2

Your extension methods do not work because your methods have the default access modifier (private). Make your methods public so that they can be accessed.

A little critique: in my opinion, the first two shouldn’t be extension methods, because you don’t actually use the object you call the method from. Instead, have a static helper class that provides this functionality. The last method isn’t an extension method at all (lacks the reference to the caller-object), so it should be placed somewhere else than the ExtensionMethod class.