If ExecuteEvents.Execute requires a target, why wouldn't I call the method directly?

Unity Engine
1

I’m trying to broadcast a message to any MonoBehavior listening. I found the following documentation for Unity’s messaging system. Redirecting to latest version of com.unity.ugui

One thing I found odd is that ExecuteEvents.Execute requires the target to be passed in. If the target needs to be known, why wouldn’t I call the method directly? What benefit does dispatching this message give?

2

It’s similar to how ‘SendMessage’ works but more strongly typed.

The target is the ‘GameObject’ to search for the interface type on as a component. So you don’t actually need a reference to the actual component/s… but to the gameobject.

It’d be the equivalent of doing:

foreach(var c in target.GetComponents<IMessageInterface>())
{
    c.Foo(bar);
}

But more concisely (and I believe it doesn’t have the array overhead of GetComponents).

Also ExecuteHierarchy will traverse the hierarchy for you as well.

3

What if I don’t know the game object? Is there a way to broadcast globally to anything listening?

4

Not with ExecuteEvents, no.

But you can write a global broadcaster similar to it.

Here’s my own personal implementation of such a thing (note this is not copy/paste since it has some dependencies that won’t resolve… it’s intended more for demonstration pusposes):

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