Instantiated in IF statement - Else Reference object

Questions & Answers
1

Im extremely new to programming so bear with me.

public void clickWood()
{
   //Check If The Player Has Gotten Wood Previously
   if(_hasWood == false)
    {

        GameObject newItem = Instantiate(wood_prefab) as GameObject;

        //Initial Displayed Name
        newItem.GetComponent<ButtonSetter>().setName("WOOD: ");

        //Starts with 0 Wood, set to 1
        newItem.GetComponent<ButtonSetter>().item_count += 1;

        newItem.transform.SetParent(GameObject.Find("Content").transform,false);

        //Got their first wood, should run else from now on
        _hasWood = true;
    }
    else
    {
        //SEE CONTINUED POST
    }
}

So, within the else statement, I want to basically say,

They got their first wood, so we created a panel to display information about the wood they have. Now I want to say, since we have already instantiated the displayPanel, we just want to work from that and adjust the object’s variable that controls the integer part of “Wood: 0”

This should be

newItem.GetComponent<ButtonSetter>().item_count

But if I try accessing that within the else statement as shown:

newItem.GetComponent<ButtonSetter>().item_count += 1;

It tells me that newItem does not exist within the current context. How can I Instantiate something under certain conditions, then after the condition was met, take the instantiated object and work with its script/variables?

Here is a Visual Representation of my question

128520-explain.png
128520-explain.png1373×841 63.7 KB

2

public ButtonSetter WoodPrefab;
private ButtonSetter woodItem;

public void clickWood()
{
   //Check If The Player Has Gotten Wood Previously
   if( woodItem == null )
    {
        woodItem = Instantiate(WoodPrefab);
        woodItem.transform.SetParent(GameObject.Find("Content").transform,false);

        //Initial Displayed Name
        woodItem.setName("WOOD: ");
    }
    
    woodItem.item_count++;
}