Finding simObjects by name, from script.

[chriscalef]

So, I recently wrote an engine function to do this, but felt awfully stupid because there *has* to be a way to do this already, right??

 

DefineEngineFunction(findSimObjectByName, S32, (const char *objName), , "")
{
SimObject *simObj = NULL;
simObj = Sim::findObject(objName);

if (simObj)
	return simObj->getId();
else
	return 0;
}

 

I looked around in simSet and SimGroup but couldn't find anything. In case this is actually lacking in the engine, could someone give me a better idea of where it should live? I know where I put it is the wrong place, that's all I know. :-)

[Jason Campbell]

What about findObjectByInternalName()? Every SimObject would have to have an internal name but it can search SimGroups and SimSets. Think it is game.cs where this would go.

http://docs.garagegames.com/torque-3d/reference/classSimSet.html

[chriscalef]

Well, yeah I've been using that for a while, but it just seems silly not to have a script way to find any object in the scene by its declared name. I wonder if simManager.cpp would be a reasonable place to put it, if it actually isn't already somewhere.

[OTHGMars]

In that case:

%name = "SomeName";
%objID = findSimObjectByName (%name);

 

would be functionally equivalent to:

%name = "SomeName";
%objID = isObject(%name) ? %name.getId() : 0;

 

or, if you want to restrict it to being a member of a particular SimSet.

%name = "SomeName";
%objID = SomeSet.isMember(%name) ? %name.getId() : 0;

Is there a particular case where a dedicated function would be preferable?

[JeffR]

Yeah, @OTHGMars is correct. Technically the name ITSELF is a reference in script. Unlike in C++ where you need to actually talk to the console to find an object by name, the name itself is a reference to the object. If you have the object, and the object exists, you're done.

If your object is called TheThing in the level, then if you know the object's name (TheThing) then accessing it is as simple as using it's name TheThing.variable = 5;

If you're unsure if it exists yet, then you can use isObject(TheThing) to validate that an object with that name exists first.

Having said that, There could indeed be use in a function that lets you search partial names and get back an object, or a list of objects. That could be pretty handy.

[chriscalef]

Ah, right, duh! That makes perfect sense. Thank you @OTHGMars @JeffR

[JeffR]

Any time :)