Serializing, Generics, and Inheritance

Unity Engine
1

I’m having a hard time getting a generic monobehaviour to properly work. To do so, it’s generic fields must be serialized and show up in the editor. Here’s the relevant code for the generic monobehaviour:

public class ResultConsumer<Request,Result> : MonoBehaviour where Request : struct, IEquatable<Request> where Result : struct
{
    [SerializeField]
    private Cache resultsCache;
    [SerializeField]
    private Queue requestsQueue;
  
    [Serializable]
    public class Cache : ResultCache<Request, Result>
    {

    }
    [Serializable]
    public class Queue : RequestQueue<Request>
    {
    }
}

Here’s the relevant code for ResultCache and RequestQueue.

public class RequestQueue<Request> : MonoBehaviour where Request : struct, IEquatable<Request>
{

]

public class ResultCache<Request,Result> : MonoBehaviour where Request : struct, IEquatable<Request> where Result : struct
{

}

My goal is to allow any class to inherit from ResultConsumer and then drap n’ drop a ResultCache and RequestQueue that matches its type. However, ResultConsumer’s fields are not being serialized properly and won’t show up in the editor. Any ideas on how to circumvent this limitation?

2

Move the Cache and Queue classes to their own files.

Fully implement ResultConsumer.

Any type that contains a templated generic parameter in its declaration is never serializable by Unity.

1 Like