For loop breaking after two cycles

[cursive barn]

A quick rundown of how the script works: it's a simple tram which tweens along a path of waypoints. These waypoints are designated by a folder in the workspace titled: "Waypoints". In the folder there are a set amount of parts, each labled with a number such as "1" or "2". In my tram handler script, there is a for loop which checks through the folder and checks for which part is named the current waypoint plus one. Since when the tram initially begins it will be at waypoint 0, the current waypoint variable is declared as 0 and the for loop checks for waypoint 0+1 which is 1. After that loop cycles, it will check for 1+1, which is 2. Then, it should check for 2+1, but this is where the loop breaks. Completely breaks. The print function at the beginning of the loop doesn't fire so I know it just stops completely. I'm not sure why this has happened as it has worked fine before, and only broke after I renamed some of the parts. Yes, I did check for any whitespace in each of the waypoints' names but there's none. I'm really not sure what the problem is with it

[final grove]

activates mindreading powers hmm yes it's because you're getting an error, you forgot to carry the 1

in all seriousness though if you actually want help, describing the code isn't going to do anything because if your description of the code worked how you thought it did, you wouldn't be having any problems

[cursive barn]

Ya here i couldnt paste it cause it was too long

[final grove]

reading is hard ngl

[cursive barn]

Oh alr i just saw the negative number i'll resend it

[final grove]

where is CurrentWaypoint and where is this function called from

because the problem looks rather simple

    for _, waypoint in workspace:WaitForChild("Waypoints"):GetChildren() do
        print("Searching waypoints: "..waypoint.Name)
        if tonumber(waypoint.Name) == currentWaypoint + 1 then
            currentWaypoint += 1```

the order of instance:GetChildren() is not guaranteed

and then depending on whether you call this function multiple times, it will reach the end and then just straight up stop completely and never loop

[cursive barn]

current waypoint is a variable at the top of the script

[final grove]

but yea pretty sure the issue is just the loop is skipping a bunch of points like it will look at point 3 then point 1 then point 2, and stop, because point 3 came before point 2 in the loop

and since you presumably only call it once, it will never find point 3

[cursive barn]

Well the loop doesn't even check the numbers once it gets to the second point i'll show u the output

[final grove]

your print should actually show this

[cursive barn]

It ends on the red one and doesnt even loop again to check for a third waypoint

It used to work completely but i switched the order of two waypoints and it doesnt work anymore

[final grove]

so yeah like i said, it's reading the later waypoints before the early ones.

[final grove]

it is exactly this

[final grove]

coz notice it searches here 3, then 4, then 2. and you're saying it stops at waypoint 2.

[final grove]

and since you presumably only call it once, it will never find point 3

i sure do love repeating myself

[cursive barn]

So the loop won't recheck points it already checked through? i don't understand

[final grove]

code isn't magic

it does exactly what you tell it to do

[final grove]

and it's because you thought the order of GetChildren was guaranteed when it is not

you assumed getchildren would return a table of instances sorted by their name -- it's not sorted.

occasionally it may seem like it is sorted, but it is actually going by memory order. this is normal luau behavior

if you want the table sorted by name, use table.sort

alternatively, use for i=1, totalNumWaypoints, 1 do local waypoint=folder:FindFirstChild(tostring(i))

or something like that

[final grove]

you also apparently assume luau knows that it needs to loop the table more than once

both of these assumptions are incorrect

so ya hope that helps reading is an ancient lost skill apparently

https://create.roblox.com/docs/tutorials/fundamentals/coding-5/loops-and-arrays

https://create.roblox.com/docs/tutorials/fundamentals/coding-4/intro-to-for-loops

[cursive barn]

Hi Mr pyro fire,
Thanks for the fixes i appreciate it, especially getting talked down the entire time for asking a question in the question channel like im a sloth that had fetal alcohol syndrome but dont worry i enjoyd it as i have a severe degration knk 🤗

[final grove]

i'm not intending to talk down, only the part about not reading things closely

aside from that everything else is normal, like assuming getchildren is sorted by name when it isn't. common mistake for beginners, calling this an assumption is correct term

[final grove]

coz if you read your output window closely you'd have seen it checking later waypoints before the earlier ones, then cross reference that against what's written in the code and you see it only loops once, so it won't ever read the 3rd waypoint at a valid time

[final grove]

this is an assumption too but even if you called it more than once the behavior would still be erroneous from your first assumption that getchildren returns ordered result

don't worry though, you get used to checking stuff like this as you keep making stuff you may think i'm making you feel stupid, but really it was just your code doing that

very normal, makes me feel stupid all the time too