String Based Type Selection In An Attribute

[fresh wind]

Disclosure: This question stems from limitations related to game modding, it is not about modding specifically but that is why it's a weird question. If there isn't a suitable answer that's fine.

For attributes that require a type reference, eg. [CustomEditor(Type)] is there a way I can provide a name of a type via a string and let Unity attempt to resolve that somehow? ideally i'd want like [CustomEditor("Item")] or something rather but I'm unfamiliar of the ways i can and can't be dynamic with values in an Attribute deceleration context.

I was considering posting this in #↕️┃editor-extensions since that's relevent to the example but theres a couple other places i'm curious about too that's runtime applicable

[astral steppe]

Give your attribute a string parameter and then resolve the string to a type at runtime as needed

You could use https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotNet/api/system.type.gettype?view=net-10.0#system-type-gettype(system-string) or your own custom type resolution system (a simple example would be just a dictionary<string, Type> or something

[fallow ore]

for existing attributes there's not much way around it, attribute values are baked into the compiled assembly and can't really be dynamic in the slightest

you might be able to do something with cecil/a unity IL postprocessor to insert the right values into your assembly after compilation

[astral plover]

yeah, that's what comes to mind here

[forest shell]

nameof(TypeName) will return a string with the name of the type

or typeof(TypeName) will return the Type itself

[astral steppe]

typeof doesn't work with strings because it's not a dynamic runtime operator

[forest shell]

typeof returns the type not the string

nameof will return a string

[astral steppe]

you need to do typeof(MonoBehaviour) for example

you can't do:

string typeName = "MonoBehaviour";
Type t = typeof(typeName);```

it doesn't take a string

it isn't dynamic, it's resolved at compile time

[forest shell]

I am confused at what exactly are you trying to do

[astral steppe]

I'm not trying to do anything

is there a way I can provide a name of a type via a string and let Unity attempt to resolve that somehow? ideally i'd want like [CustomEditor("Item")] or something rather but I'm unfamiliar of the ways i can and can't be dynamic with values in an Attribute deceleration context.

Op wrote this^