#help with storage

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

hazy sinew
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hey

rough pewter
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whats the issue

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I need to remake my Saving video better 🥲

hazy sinew
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so, basically i have no idea what i'm doing, i've never done anything with this kind of stuff, and I can't seem to figure it out :/

rough pewter
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like what for example?

hazy sinew
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just the whole saving thing

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i don't understand it

rough pewter
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its pretty simple, what exactly is confusing

hazy sinew
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i'm not sure how to explain it, i just kinda don't understand how to make it read the files

rough pewter
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did you get the saving working first ?

hazy sinew
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uh, do i have to build it first and check? because i dont know if saving will work in the editor

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also i dont know where the files go 😭

rough pewter
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when and how do you want to save in the first place

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forget th code for second

hazy sinew
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Oh wait there is errors

image.png
rough pewter
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yea you are missing the namespaces

hazy sinew
rough pewter
hazy sinew
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ok

rough pewter
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its easier to test in playmode

hazy sinew
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so just make a button to save it?

rough pewter
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make a button to save , yes

hazy sinew
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alright, the button exists

rough pewter
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okay do you have a save objec ?

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the one tha will save all the data you want

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where is the data you want to save come from ? like what are you storing for player exactly ?

hazy sinew
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the data is coming from the text bit of 2 objects

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like a money counter i guess

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or this

image.png
rough pewter
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ahh they're properties, unity doesn't like that

hazy sinew
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:(

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what should i do then?

rough pewter
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just make them public fields for now

hazy sinew
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so like serializefield?

rough pewter
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nah just public double MyDouble

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etc

hazy sinew
rough pewter
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you have {get; set;}

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do you know what those are ?

hazy sinew
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no 😭

rough pewter
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they're part of a property, its the accessor

hazy sinew
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if i get rid of it won't it break though?

rough pewter
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nope

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properties are similar to Methods

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you can specificy something running when you assign/read it

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i suggest you def learn about them at some point

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they're very powerful

hazy sinew
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i will

rough pewter
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but yea for now you dont need them

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it will just complicate the serializing for now

hazy sinew
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just like that?

image.png
rough pewter
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why is it not underlining red

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screenshot your whole editor

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you're missing ; lol

hazy sinew
hazy sinew
rough pewter
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yes you have to configure your IDE first

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did you install VIsual Studio through Unity Hub or manually?

hazy sinew
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as in make it not say miscellaneous files?

rough pewter
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it should say Assembly-CSharp

hazy sinew
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i've done that like 5 times it keeps resetting

rough pewter
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go inside the External Tools page and click Regen Project files

hazy sinew
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fixed

rough pewter
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good. does it say assmbly csharp and highlight errors?

hazy sinew
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yes

rough pewter
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always make sure you code with that on, its important

hazy sinew
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yep, i will

rough pewter
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ok so did you make a save Object ?

hazy sinew
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i made a save button, do you want me to also make an empty game object?

rough pewter
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when I say Object, I mean a C# object not Unity

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for unity I would say , GameObject

hazy sinew
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oh

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sorry

rough pewter
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no worry

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just remember in c# you're working with Objects

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a class is an object

hazy sinew
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ok, i've got an object

rough pewter
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so you need an Object (a class) to store what you want to save

rough pewter
hazy sinew
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just tthis?

image.png
rough pewter
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well you can use this for saving sure, since its monobehavior

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you also need a Plain Class just to store what you want to save

hazy sinew
rough pewter
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yup

hazy sinew
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awesome

rough pewter
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You can put it outside of the class

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this way you dont have to do TheOther.SaveData

hazy sinew
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ok, thanks

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should i put the doubles inside?

rough pewter
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yup anything you want to store should be a field

hazy sinew
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like this?

image.png
rough pewter
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good

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now you have to create an object of SaveData that stores that in the file

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You can do it two ways

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One is to make this SaveData class a [Serializable] and then you can a make a public/serializiedPrivate field for it inside Saving

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this will create an Instance of this object by Unity since it will be in the inspector

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Or

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You create one yourself each save by doing the normal way of creating instance for regular Object/Classes

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which is for example SaveData newSaveData = new()

hazy sinew
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alright, is there a better one or are they both equal?

rough pewter
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they're both valid

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Serializable class has benefit of you see it inside the inspector

hazy sinew
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ok so should i go with that one?

rough pewter
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if you want sure

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you need [Serializable] attribute above the class SaveData

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this tells Unity you can serialize this class

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then create a field for it inside Saving

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with me so far?

hazy sinew
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i did the serializable thing, but create a field

rough pewter
hazy sinew
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its just this so far right?

image.png
rough pewter
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ok good

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btw Serializing just means saving/storing data

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incase you were confused that word being thrown around

hazy sinew
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thanks

rough pewter
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now if you make a field for SaveData inside Saving, that will be what will save so you will pass any data changed to it

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you know how to pass data between scripts right?

hazy sinew
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i think so

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i'm honestly still a bit confused on making the field

rough pewter
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why ?

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you made so many so far lol

hazy sinew
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i'm not sure i think my brain stopped working

rough pewter
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public double CurrentFoxCount;
this is a field

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a public one

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CurrentFoxCount is the Field and its of type double

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making a field is just saying " I want to store this object here"

hazy sinew
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alright, i'm really sorry about this lol

rough pewter
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no worries, show me what you got

hazy sinew
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i have no idea if this is correct

image.png
rough pewter
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well no, why is SaveData field a double

hazy sinew
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its not rght

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yeah

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lol

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idk what i did

image.png
rough pewter
rough pewter
hazy sinew
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i dont know what type to put the savedata as i think

rough pewter
hazy sinew
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yes

rough pewter
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classes are types

hazy sinew
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so just public savedata;

rough pewter
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you're missing the type

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private/public Type variableName

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eg
public SaveData CurrentSaveData

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it can ofc just be public SaveData SaveData
the former being more explicit though

hazy sinew
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so wait is savedata both a type and what i decided the name to be?

rough pewter
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yeah SaveData is now a type since you create a class for it

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defined what SaveData is

hazy sinew
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ohhh

rough pewter
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Variable name is kinda inconsequential

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thats for your own clarity

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it can be public SaveData PotatoSalad but that would not make sense to you to access .PotatoSalad

hazy sinew
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yeah, thanks, so is it this?

image.png
rough pewter
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yea

hazy sinew
rough pewter
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now the first step would be to fill that new Instance of SaveData called GameSaveData with the data from your player or whatever

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so when you want to save , you need to extract that data into GameSaveData

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where are you storing the double for CurrentFoxCount

hazy sinew
rough pewter
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great so you need to reference/get that value from FoxManager

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preferably on Save() method you will make in Saving

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you can link that to the button for example

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I see you already have a static Instance of FoxManager

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so you can easily just access it like that

hazy sinew
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and how would i go about doing that?

rough pewter
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for example

GameSaveData.CurrentFoxCount =  FoxManager.instance.CurrentFoxCount;```
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do it for both fields , then you simply save GameSaveData in json with JsonUtil

# 
 public void Save()
    {
       GameSaveData.CurrentFoxCount =  FoxManager.Instance.CurrentFoxCount;
       GameSaveData.CurrentFoxPerSecond =  FoxManager.Instance.CurrentFoxPerSecond;

       string jsonData = JsonUtility.ToJson(GameSaveData);```
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You could technically just keep GameSaveData itself on FoxManager so you don't even have to do this middleman thing

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whatever is easier for you

hazy sinew
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well i've ran into an issue, not too sure if i just did something wrong

image.png image.png
rough pewter
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yeah corrected my code example, noticed yours doesn't have it stored as Instance

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capitlizaition matters 😛

hazy sinew
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oh yeah

rough pewter
hazy sinew
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ok cool so it has no errors now

rough pewter
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great

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now the data would get formatted into json
basically it would look like this

{"SomeValue":2.3,"SomeOtherValue":9.3}```

its a Key / Value structure
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it just needs to be saved into a file

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thats where File.WriteAllText comes in

hazy sinew
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alright, i think i'm understanding so far

rough pewter
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so from my earlier example do you kinda see whats going on now ?

hazy sinew
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yeah

rough pewter
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its pretty simple once you see it a couple of times

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the more you do it also will be engrained in your mind

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as you can see it starts inside special folder

hazy sinew
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yeah

rough pewter
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the Path.Combine method basically just avoids us having to use string concat with folders/filename and slashes

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instead of string path = Application.persistentDataPath + "/" + "fileName.ext"
it can just be string path = Path.Combine(Application.persistentDataPath, "fileName.ext")

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it also helps compatibility with different OS systems and their pathing slashes

hazy sinew
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alright, that makes sense

rough pewter
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great, give it a test at let me know

hazy sinew
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alright, i'll try it now

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yeah no i'm still not getting it...

image.png
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definitely just being dumb

rough pewter
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public static void WriteAllText (string path, string? contents);

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takes in a path and contents

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both are string

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GameSaveData is not a string

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besides path, you have another string in there 😉

hazy sinew
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jsonData?

rough pewter
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JsonUtility is basically taking your Object and formatting it to json string

hazy sinew
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when i press the save button it still does nothing though

rough pewter
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well did you check the folder

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also always put a Debug.Log at the end , after FIleWrite to make sure it saved/ran

hazy sinew
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oh i found it

rough pewter
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is data inside?

hazy sinew
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sorry i was looking at my project folder

rough pewter
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no worries

hazy sinew
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data is here

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yippee

rough pewter
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noice

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basically for load you're just doing the inverse

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JsonUtility has a method for converting json back to an object

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so first you read the string in the File

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it should be the jsonString
so that goes into to Json

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since you already have SaveData stored as GameSaveData you can just assign to it when you load object FromJson

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GameSaveData = JsonUtility.FromJson<SaveData>(jsonData);

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ofc you probably want to do proper safe checks, eg like seeing if there even is a file or a valid json one. etc.

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haha after this Im gonna remake my Save data video

hazy sinew
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lol

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alright, so i'm understanding more now, and how would i go about doing safe checks?

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  • what actually happens if i don't and there isn't a file, or it's corrupted?
rough pewter
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well right now it will just give you a null object or cause FIle.IO error

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first I'd check if saveFile exists so you would pass the same Path as File.ReadAllText

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eg

if(File.Exists(thePath) == false) 
{
// handle if file does not exists, maybe tell user no Save file found?
return;// return out of the Load() function not to proceed 
}```
hazy sinew
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alright, thanks. but also the actual reading bit, how do i finish that? ir ead the documents you sent but i'm still a little confused on how i'd get it to read and update the values to the ones in the file

rough pewter
rough pewter
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use the code tags

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like this
hazy sinew
# 
 string jsonData = JsonUtility.ToJson(GameSaveData);
 string path = Path.Combine(Application.persistentDataPath, "fileName.json");
 File.WriteAllText(path, jsonData);
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like that?

rough pewter
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yes

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you only need to switch 2 lines

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this only unlike text only takes in a path string

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but it returns you the string

hazy sinew
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where do i put this?

rough pewter
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well you need a Load Method

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that is pretty much similar to your Save method

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look at your save method
do you have a path for the File.ReadAllText method?

hazy sinew
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yes

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wait

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no

rough pewter
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its yes, you have a path

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so bring that over to Load

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you made a Load() method yes ?

hazy sinew
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yes

rough pewter
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in Saving

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ok

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so path you have , bring that over

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you have a path, first id put the File.Exist snippet i shown you, for checking if file exists

hazy sinew
rough pewter
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yes

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thats your file path

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ideally you store this inside a const

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but dont worry about that now ig

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so the steps again are

-Make Path ✅
-Check File Exits ❔
-Read the File ❔
-assign Data from JsonUtil❔

hazy sinew
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alright, i have the file exists thing, it's showing an error though

image.png
rough pewter
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ofc it is

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you dont have a path

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what jappened to the path

hazy sinew
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dont worry about it

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i was dumb

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its fixed

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ignore that

rough pewter
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lol alr

hazy sinew
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so that should read the file and make sure it exists

rough pewter
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it checks if a file exists at that path with that name

hazy sinew
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awesome

rough pewter
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now if its getting passed the if statement and not returning, it means file does exist

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You can proceed to ReadAllText After (make sure its outside the if statement underneath )

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it of course doesn't know to do this automatically , you have to tell it to with the appropriate method

hazy sinew
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Done a bit of reading up, and tried a couple different things, all threw up errors 😭 what would be the appropriate method?

rough pewter
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im not mind reader

hazy sinew
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Local function 'ReadAllText(string)' must declare a body because it is not marked 'static extern'.

rough pewter
hazy sinew
rough pewter
#

ReadAllText is a static method inside the File class

hazy sinew
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because I am still not 100% sure what I am doing

rough pewter
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yes you should probably do a quick jumpstart course on C#

hazy sinew
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Yes I should

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And I will

rough pewter
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I did point out the you're doing the same thing almost as Save method is doing..

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File.WriteAllText is coming from File class

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so insted of write method you want read, it still in the File. class

hazy sinew
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so like this? ```cs
File.ReadAllText(path);

rough pewter
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remember it returns a value

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how do we store a returned value

hazy sinew
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i'm honestly not sure

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i'm definitely gonna take a course after this, i do game development in college but they mainly teach us unreal engine, and thats just blueprints and stuff

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so i'm very new to c# and unity, sorry

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thank you very much for helping me through this though, it is much appreciated

rough pewter
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this returns a string

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so you store it inside path

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any time you store something using =

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so File.ReadAllText

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string data = File.ReadAllText(path)

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by doing = you can store the return of the method since its a string, we store it inside string

hazy sinew
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is that everything?

rough pewter
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and assign it

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JsonUtility.FromJsonOverwrite(data , GameSaveData);

hazy sinew
#

ok, and after that what happens?

rough pewter
hazy sinew
rough pewter
hazy sinew
# 
    public void Load()
    {
        string path = Path.Combine(Application.persistentDataPath, "fileName.json");

        if (File.Exists(path) == false)
        {
            return;
        }

        string data = File.ReadAllText(path);
        JsonUtility.FromJsonOverwrite(data, GameSaveData);

    }
rough pewter
hazy sinew
#

it says data loaded but nothing happened

rough pewter
#

you're still missing what you do in Save Script for that

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which is assigning those values back to FoxManager

hazy sinew
#

could i just switch it around to do that?

FoxManager.instance.CurrentFoxCount = GameSaveData.CurrentFoxCount;
rough pewter
hazy sinew
#

awesome, the main CurrentFoxCount works, but the CurrentFoxPerSecond one doesnt

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yeah, no idea what's going on with that

rough pewter
hazy sinew
#

lovely

image.png
rough pewter
#

oof

hazy sinew
#

i kinda know whats up

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i think its messing with another one of my scripts 😭

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Error:
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
FoxPerSecondTimer.Update () (at Assets/Scripts/Upgradeds/FoxPerSecondTimer.cs:19)

image.png image.png
rough pewter
#

where do you assign instance for FoxManager

hazy sinew
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i'm not sure

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i'm very confused

rough pewter
#

thats strange

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is the FoxManager script on a gameobject ?

hazy sinew
#

yes

rough pewter
#

try to make a field there instead and assign it in the inspector