Referencing non-static variable from script on child C#

Questions & Answers
1

I’m trying to reference a non-static varaible from a script, WeaponScript. WeaponScript is found in several child objects which are toggled on and off, and each contain a variable machineGun.bulletsLeft (I want to just change the enabled object’s variable).
Here’s what I have so far:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class ammopickup : MonoBehaviour {
	int ammo;
	Component script;

	void Awake () { 
		script = GameObject.FindWithTag("Player").GetComponentInChildren<WeaponScript>();
		ammo = script.machineGun.bulletsLeft;
		
	}
	
	void OnTriggerEnter(Collider other){
		ammo = ammo + 20;
		audio.Play ();
	}
}

This is the error I get:
WeaponSystem/ammopickup.cs(11,31): error CS1061: Type UnityEngine.Component' does not contain a definition for machineGun’ and no extension method machineGun' of type UnityEngine.Component’ could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

How should I go about fixing this? Is it because the script can’t find the script to access the variable, or because I’m stupid and wrote the whole thing wrong. Thanks!

2

You have declared script like this:

Component script;

Meaning that you only have access to the variables and methods from the Component class. Now, it’s still a WeaponScript, but the compiler doesn’t know this. When you do this:

script = GameObject.FindWithTag("Player").GetComponentInChildren<WeaponScript>();

It works, because your WeaponScript is also a component (because it inherits from MonoBehaviour, which inherits from Behaviour, which inherits from Component), but on the next line, the compiler just sees that you’re trying to call .machinegun on a component.

To fix this, just declare the script variable as a WeaponScript:

WeaponScript script;

void Awake () { 
    script = GameObject.FindWithTag("Player").GetComponentInChildren<WeaponScript>();
    ammo = script.machineGun.bulletsLeft;
}

Note that “script” is a horrible variable name, since everything is a script.