Can someone please what WaitForChild() means and does?

[earnest garden]

Sorrry if this is a stupid question but im really trying to learn some lua! Please dont flam me if this is a stupid question

[craggy stirrup]

it waits for a child

[earnest garden]

What is a child?

lol

[craggy stirrup]

for example, lets say i have a part in workspace named "Part"

then, lets say i have this server script:

local part = workspace.Part

print(part.Position)

This is probably going to return an error

theres a couple specifics which i forgot 💀 but the script wont recognize a child of workspace named "part"

thats because the script will run before the part is loaded

[earnest garden]

Oooh

[craggy stirrup]

instead, if i did

local part = workspace:WaitForChild("Part") --looks for a child of workspace named "Part"

print(part.Position)

that would work

[craggy stirrup]

hierarchy

[earnest garden]

That makes so much sense now thank you bro🙏

[craggy stirrup]

crude drawing but a child is an instance that is parented under another instance

so in my previous example, workspace would be the parent of Part

all instances can only have 1 parent

but instances can have any number of children

so although workspace would be the only parent of Part, workspace would be a parent to multiple things (baseplate, spawn, etc)

i just took this picture from another post but here, SprintBars has 6 children

you can barely see that SprintBars is a child of another thing

[earnest garden]

Aah yes i see

I get it now

but how do you know when to use it?

[craggy stirrup]

thats a little more complicated

it goes into client server boundaries and replication

if your starting off, i wouldnt learn those

yet

[worn scroll]

yea

[craggy stirrup]

but for now, just try it out and if theres an error on that line, try using wait for child

its a bit over the top but it works

[earnest garden]

Okay thanks man I really appreciate the help

🙏

[craggy stirrup]

just remember that you should use wait for child in places where something loads before the script itself

[craggy stirrup]

np, good luck

[earnest garden]

👍

[dry lily]

to expand on your knowledge, should learn scripting

[earnest garden]

What do you mean?

[dry lily]

like learn how to script.

[earnest garden]

What do you think im trying to do? 😭

Im trying to understand what im actually typing

lol

[dry lily]

just check roblox docs first

that could have answered your question

[earnest garden]

Sorry

[ivory dome]

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