Node References don't work in a Dictionary

bennnperson

I'm trying to make a dictionary in code to store all the info for the weapons in my game, some of which are node reference. For some reason, having a node reference as it's own variable works perfectly, but if I put that exact reference inside a dictionary, all of a sudden it breaks and the reference doesn't work.

This works:

var nodeReference = get_node("node1/node2/TargetNode")

But this doesn't:

var weaponDictionary = {
	'nodeReference': get_node("node1/node2/TargetNode"),
}

When trying to use the dictionary version, it tells me the node path is a null instance. I've confirmed that the code to refer to the node in the dictionary is working and that I've written the dictionary correctly. It looks to me like it could be a bug, but I don't want to rule out that I've made a mistake somewhere, even if I have NO clue where I might've made one. Does anybody know how I can fix this, or if I can even fix it? Thank you!

TwistedTwigleg

Are the code statement during initialization of the class or in a function (like _ready, _process, etc)?

I think you could probably do insert a reference to a node like this:

var node_ref = get_node("node1/node2/TargetNode")
var weaponDictionary = {
	'nodeReference':node_ref,
}

Though I haven't tried it so I cannot say for sure it would work.

Zelta

this could help?

func _ready():
	if is_instance_valid(node_ref): 
		print(node_ref , " i exist in world")

func _ready():
	if is_instance_valid(weaponDictionary.node_reference): 
		print(node_ref , " i exist in the dict")

bennnperson

@TwistedTwigleg said: Are the code statement during initialization of the class or in a function (like _ready, _process, etc)?

I think you could probably do insert a reference to a node like this:

var node_ref = get_node("node1/node2/TargetNode") var weaponDictionary = { 'nodeReference':node_ref, }

I tried that idea, but it still didn't work. However, I tried putting the dictionary in the ready function and it worked great! I would assume it has something to do with needing to put "onready" before node variables, but when I tried that with the dictionary outside of the ready function, it still didn't work. It works inside the function, though, so that's all that's matters! Thank you for helping me out!

TwistedTwigleg

No problem! I'm glad you were able to find a solution :smile:

cybereality

In general, you cannot run code outside of a function. For some simple functions it can work (like doing a calculation and returning a simple object like a float or a string) but if you need to access the tree or object properties it won't work as these don't exist until the game is running. Probably a better method is to save NodePaths in the Dictionary as these are just Strings and are static and don't need anything to be running. You can get the NodePath by right-clicking the Node in the Scene tree, or by simply dragging and dropping the Node into the script window and it will fill in the path string. Then at run-time, you access the string from the Dictionary and call get_node() at that point and it will work.

bennnperson

@cybereality This is a clever idea! I always knew a node path was just a string within "get_node()", but I guess I've never internalized it. Thank you, I'll give this a try!