Where In Script Can This, Ui(), Scene(), Etc., Be Used?

[First, it would be really nice if there was a specific section in the forum for scripting questions -- that way people who *only* want NoCode don't ever have to see script stuff -- and those of us who are code geeks would have a place to play.]

Here's my scripting problem...

Code that I've written works when inside the signal() function, but in trying to clean things up I broke some code out into their own functions that are called from inside signal() -- and the code stopped working. It's saying things like, "this.ui is not a function" but it's the same code that worked inside signal().

So I thought maybe I could create some global variables outside of any function:

Code:

var _this
var _ui
var _scene
var _ent

...and then initialize them inside the init() function so I could then use them later:

Code:

function init() {
    _this = this
    _ui = this.ui()
    _scene = this.scene()
    _ent = this.entity()
    ...

...but no joy -- inside the other functions _this sometimes works (not sure), but _ui, for example, just shows as null.

Can anybody shed some light on what's happening here? I would expect to be able to set a global variable inside init that would then be available throughout the life of that entity. Or maybe a script component goes in and out of life???

 

Hi Jay! You pose a good question here. The issue is that the keyword `this` is defined differently in a custom function vs the built-in functions. Here's some solutions you can try.

1. Use `component` keyword
Outside of the built-in functions in a script, if you need to use `this` you can use `component` instead.

Code:

function init(){
   log(this.ui());
   foo();
}

function foo(){
   log(component.ui()); // same result as this.ui() inside init()
}

2. Global variable _this
I believe your global variable solution will work if you initialize `_this = this` in init(), then in your custom function use `_this.ui();` etc

Code:

let _this;

function init() {
   _this = this;
}

function foo(){
   log(_this.ui());
}

I hope that helps!

 

Thanks Workes Perfectly.