Weird Getter behaviour?

[lofty vine]

I am facing a weird issue where my Getter always returns 0. Here is my code:

Setting the spawn position works but getting the spawn position always returns 0. Why?

public class Tile : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] string tileName;

    int spawnPosition;

    public string GetTileName()
    {
        return tileName;
    }

    public int GetSpawnPosition()
    {
        print("returned: " + spawnPosition);
        return spawnPosition;
    }

    public void SetSpawnPosition(int spawnPosition)
    {
        this.spawnPosition = spawnPosition;
        print("set to: " + this.spawnPosition);
    }

    private void Update()
    {
        print("DANIEL" + spawnPosition);
    }
}```

`print("DANIEL" + spawnPosition);` always prints DANIEL0 and `print("returned: " + spawnPosition);` always prints returned 0

The weird thing is that `print("set to: " + this.spawnPosition);` prints the correct value.

The EVEN WEIRDER thing is that when I make spawnPosition public it WORKS even though I never access it directly, only through the Getter method.

**Can anybody explain this to me?**

The code where I call the Getter:

if (tileRb2DList[i] == null) { continue; }

tileScript = tileRb2DList[i].gameObject.GetComponent<Tile>();

if (tileScript.GetSpawnPosition() < 4)
{
    tileRb2DList[i].velocity = moveLeftVelocity;
    print("Moving tile with spawnPos : " + tileScript.GetSpawnPosition());
}
else
{
    tileRb2DList[i].velocity = moveRightVelocity;
    print("Moving tile with spawnPos : " + tileScript.GetSpawnPosition());
}```

[wicked dove]

NB: "Getter" and "setter" methods are bad C# design, use a property

[lofty vine]

What's the difference? I thought public int spawnPosition { get; set; } was just another quicker way to write get / set methods

[tough robin]

it's quicker. and more elegant.

And less tedious to use, because you get rid of the parentheses during declaration & calls.

[wicked dove]

more elegant
This is the key thing of it. It is indeed quicker to write, but the most important thing is that it fits with .NET guidelines. Getter/setter methods are found in langs like Python, C++, Java.
But C# doesn't do it. They are ugly and considered horrendous practice, you should always use a property to publicly expose things like that

The only exemption to this is if you're accepting a parameter, like for example if you had a GetCellAtCoordinate - and you needed to pass a coordinate. GetCellAtCoordinate(Vector2.zero) - you can't make this a property

[lofty vine]

If I use public int spawnPosition { get; set; }, how would I get the value?
I tried GetSpawnPosition() but that doesn't work

I'm sorry, I've never used properties before and the documentation seems complicated

[tough robin]

Well, technically you could use an indexer for that...and with a cell grid, that might even make sense.

But yeah. Getters/Setters do have their uses still.

[tough robin]

You just leave out the parentheses.
Getting/setting a property works just like getting/setting a field.

Also, public members should always be named in PascalCase, so it would be public int SpawnPosition { get; set; }

[lofty vine]

I did tileScript.GetSpawnPosition where tileScript is the script but it says that "Tile" doesn't contain a definition for SpawnPosition

[wicked dove]

Your code snippet and your error don't match

[woeful wigeon]

It's hard to answer a programming question without code

Resolving a bug is almost impossible when the question doesn't include any of the buggy code. In order to help fix the problem, answerers are going to have to see what the code is.
Source: https://idownvotedbecau.se/nocode

Please isolate the problematic code and send it as a codeblock. If you don't know how to send a codeblock, type []cb

[lofty vine]

for (int i = 0; i < tileRb2DList.Count; i++)
        {
            if (tileRb2DList[i] == null) { continue; }

            tileScript = tileRb2DList[i].gameObject.GetComponent<Tile>();

            if (tileScript.GetSpawnPosition < 4)
            {
                tileRb2DList[i].velocity = moveLeftVelocity;
                print("Moving tile with spawnPos : " + tileScript.GetSpawnPosition);
            }
            else
            {
                tileRb2DList[i].velocity = moveRightVelocity;
                print("Moving tile with spawnPos : " + tileScript.GetSpawnPosition);
            }```

at tileScript.GetSpawnPosition my Visual Studio says "Tile" doesn't contain a definition for SpawnPosition

[wicked dove]

Well why are you still doing GetSpawnPosition?

I thought you renamed it to SpawnPosition like zenvin said

[ocean sinew]

Yeah I don't see a property anywhere in that code

[lofty vine]

You are right, I thought you still had to write get ._.

But it's still 0, I'll send the modified code

public class Tile : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] string tileName;

    public int SpawnPosition { get; set; }

    private void Update()
    {
        print("DANIEL" + SpawnPosition);
    }
}```

It's always printing DANIEL0

   for (int i = 0; i < tileRb2DList.Count; i++)
    {
        if (tileRb2DList[i] == null) { continue; }

        tileScript = tileRb2DList[i].gameObject.GetComponent<Tile>();

        if (tileScript.SpawnPosition < 4)
        {
            tileRb2DList[i].velocity = moveLeftVelocity;
            print("Moving tile with spawnPos : " + tileScript.SpawnPosition);
        }
        else
        {
            tileRb2DList[i].velocity = moveRightVelocity;
            print("Moving tile with spawnPos : " + tileScript.SpawnPosition);
        }
    } ```

Same here

   {
       int spawned = 0;
       while(spawned != spawnPositions.Length - 1)
       {
           GameObject tile = tilesToGenerate.ElementAt(Random.Range(0, tilesToGenerate.Count)).Key;
           int value;
           if(tilesToGenerate.TryGetValue(tile, out value))
           {
               if(value != 3)
               {
                   tile.GetComponent<Tile>().SpawnPosition = spawned;
                   Instantiate(tile, spawnPositions[spawned + 1].position, Quaternion.identity);
                   spawned++;
                   tilesToGenerate[tile] += 1;
               }
           }
       }
   }
}```

Setting it here

If I print(spawned) inside the last script, it's the value is correct

[ocean sinew]

Have you actually set the tilescripts spawn position? I don't see any code anywhere that would do so, you just seem to be getting the value which defaults to 0, you could confirm this by setting SpawnPosition equal to -1 (after the brackets like this)

public int MyInt { get; set; } = -1

[lofty vine]

I am setting it inside the last script at tile.GetComponent<Tile>().SpawnPosition = spawned;

[lofty vine]

Anyone else? <@&823670198958948373>

[pallid dagger]

Umm, wait, imma read back

Umm, you should see before you get

Set*

[lofty vine]

I'm setting here and that is called before I get

When I make it visible in the editor, it's not 0

[pallid dagger]

Are you sure that the get can see the updated number?

Also I'm making a spawning system for my game, so maybe I can help you more when I start making it

[lofty vine]

Mine already works, it's 2D I just need to know which spawn something spawned from and I didn't think I would need that when making it D:

[lofty vine]

What exactly do you mean by that?

[pallid dagger]

All scripts run simultaneously in unity, so you have to make sure that the get happens in a frame after the frame in which the set happens

[lofty vine]

Yes that is the case

[pallid dagger]

And it still returns 0 but it returns the correct value in the inspector?

[lofty vine]

That's correct

[pallid dagger]

Maybe use getcomponent<script name>.variable name in inspector

[]cb

[woeful wigeon]

Use codeblocks to send code in a message!

To make a codeblock, surround your code with ```
To use C# syntax highlighting add cs after the three back ticks.

For example:
```cs
Console.WriteLine("Hello World");
```

Produces:

Console.WriteLine("Hello World");

To send lengthy code, paste it into https://paste.myst.rs/ and send the link of the paste into chat.

[pallid dagger]

Sorry, didn't mean to do thar

That*

[lofty vine]

I'll try that but did you also see what I wrote

at the top

"The EVEN WEIRDER thing is that when I make spawnPosition public it WORKS even though I never access it directly, only through the Getter method."

Can you explain that?

This makes no sense to me

[tough robin]

NB: This is technically not quite correct.
Every Update/LateUpdate method of every script instance runs every frame, but that's far from being "simultaneous". They will still be executed in a certain order.
You can only get stuff to run truly simultaneously, if you multithread (which Unity does not do by default). And if you have operations placed within the same method, they will always be executed in the order that they are written in.

[pallid dagger]

I know, but he needs to order them so that the set happens before the get

That's what I meant

[lofty vine]

It does. I tried it D:

[pallid dagger]

Well, I'm on my phone rn, so I can't try your code, anyways, you can try doing get component and see

[lofty vine]

That 's also showing 0

[pallid dagger]

Is it public, or does it have a privacy level that the getter can access?

[lofty vine]

I did this:

{
    [SerializeField] int test = 999;

    void Update()
    {
        test = (GetComponent<Tile>().SpawnPosition);
    }
}```

(This is when using properties because the other people told me to use properties)

[pallid dagger]

Well, you have to reference the object that you get the component from

[lofty vine]

It's on the object

[pallid dagger]

Then you gotta add this or whatever references the object before get component

[lofty vine]

Still showing 0

{
    [SerializeField] int test = 999;

    void Update()
    {
        test = this.GetComponent<Tile>().SpawnPosition;
    }
}```

[pallid dagger]

Weird, try doing:

{
    [SerializeField] int test = 999;
     public GameObject scriptParent

    void Update()
    {
        test = scriptParent.GetComponent<Tile>().SpawnPosition;
    }
}```

Assign the game object that has the spawnposition to the scriptParent variable

[pallid dagger]

Also make sure that your answer to this question is yes

[lofty vine]

That's not a yes or no question lol

But the property looks like this public int SpawnPosition { get; set; } = 0;

[pallid dagger]

Actually... It kinda is?

[lofty vine]

I don't think so but that doesn't matter now, did the code snippet match what you asked for?

[pallid dagger]

It doesn't matter as long as you really set the spawnposition int in here to public

[pallid dagger]

Anyways try this

[lofty vine]

Like this?

public class tesdt : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] int test = 999;
    [SerializeField] GameObject scriptParent;

    void Update()
    {
        test = scriptParent.GetComponent<Tile>().SpawnPosition;
    }
}```

[pallid dagger]

Yeah I think that'll work without setting scriptParent to public

[lofty vine]

It's showing 0 @pallid dagger

[pallid dagger]

I'm getting confused

[lofty vine]

I'm already confused, don't worry

[pallid dagger]

I'm sure that there's something wrong in the code

[lofty vine]

What part of it?

[pallid dagger]

Problem is... I can't try it in my phone

[pallid dagger]

That... I'm not sure of

Wait

I have an idea

[lofty vine]

😮

[pallid dagger]

Don't do public int GetSpawnPosition()
Try doing:

public int GetSpawnPosition;
public void GetSpawnPositionSetter()
{
print("returned: " + spawnPosition;
}

And add GetSpawnPositionSetter() to context menu, then after you set the spawnposition, right click the object that has this script, and run GetSpawnPositionSetter() and see if it works

If it does work, then the problem really is in the order in which the methods run

[lofty vine]

If the problem is the order, can't I just run my test script in LateUpdate()?

to test

[pallid dagger]

Just do this to make sure, cuz you can do something else wrong in LateUpdate()

[lofty vine]

How do I add GetSpawnPositionSetter() to the context menu

[pallid dagger]

Wait, imma type the exact syntax

[lofty vine]

wait

I think we both have been dividing way too much time to this. I think I should stop and just go with making it public. We might figure it out after 1 hour but it wouldn't be worth it I think

I have been sitting in this thread for hours but I don't think it's worth it honestly

I hope that doesn't disappoint you. I must say you have been a great help when troubleshooting 🙂

[pallid dagger]

Ok no problem 🙂

Anyways you can add a method to context menu by doing:

[ContextMenu("Name you want in inspector")]

Before the method declaration

[lofty vine]

Thanks, I'll keep it in mind

[pallid dagger]

You're welcome

[ocean sinew]

This is false

Everything runs synchronously in Unity, one after another, some scripts are executed before others but all have a certain order that is followed and unless you explicitly add asynchronous code into your game it will always finish one method before moving to the next

As for the setting and getting your condition is that the variable value is not 3 before setting spawn position, but you're not checking if
A: the tile actually has a component called Tile
B: tilesToGenerate actually has a legitimate value of "tile" which is likely the problem
Also there's a lot of abuse of GetComponent and such which would be really taxing on the system with repeated calls
Also lots of accessing variables inside arrays without just caching them which arguably would be cleaner and faster

[pallid dagger]

Yes but maybe he runs the getter before the setter, that's what I mean

[pallid dagger]

^^^

[pallid dagger]

That's right, but I didn't read through his whole code and I am on my phone, so I couldn't help him much, anyway he gave in and made the variable public instead

So it doesn't matter

[ocean sinew]

It does matter, because the next time they'll run into the exact same problem and won't know how to fix it, resorting to using a public variable which will then introduce more issues down the line

Half assed fixes aren't solutions, especially as this fix doesn't really address the root problem

[pallid dagger]

Did you read my whole message? I'm on my phone rn, I can't help much, *when* I get on my PC I'll try his code and tell him where the problem is, currently however, I can only take a guess at what the problem is

[ocean sinew]

I pointed the most likely issues out above