Accessing child node's property using a String

[Monday]

Godot Version

4.2.1

Question

Hello!

I’m trying to create a dictionary of properties of multiple child nodes that I could use to set those properties.
Simplified example:

extends Node3D

@onready var child_node_1 = %Node1
@onready var child_node_2 = %Node2

const SETTINGS: Dictionary = {
	"child_node_1:position" : Vector3(1.0, 1.0, 1.0),
	"child_node_2:position" : Vector3(2.0, 2.0, 2.0),
}

func apply_settings() -> void:
	for key in SETTINGS.keys():
		set(key, SETTINGS[key])

The point is that I’d like to access properties of child nodes using a String, like: "child_node_1:position" but it doesn’t work.
get("child_node_1:position") returns null. Same for get("child_node_1/position")

( get("child_node_1") works, so the reference to the node is correct )

Is there a way to make this work without actually adding a reference of the child node to the SETTINGS dictionary?

[mrcdk]

Object.set() only works with properties of the same object. It has no knowledge about the scene tree or access to any other node.

You’ll need to use Node.get_node_and_resource() for what you want to achieve.

Something like:

extends Node


func _ready() -> void:
	set_value('CollisionShape2D:shape:radius', 200)
	set_value('Sprite2D:position', Vector2(10, 10))
	set_value('CollisionShape2D2:shape', CapsuleShape2D.new())


func set_value(p:NodePath, value:Variant) -> void:
	var result = get_node_and_resource(p)
	var node = result[0]
	var resource = result[1]
	var property = result[2].get_subname(result[2].get_subname_count() - 1) if result[2] else null
	if node:
		if property:
			if resource:
				# If we have a property and a resource then we need to set the property to that resource
				resource.set(property, value)
			else:
				# If we don't have a resource then the property is of that node
				node.set(property, value)
		elif resource:
			# If we have a resource and no property then we are changing
			# the resource of the node's property itself
			property = p.get_subname(p.get_subname_count() - 1)
			node.set(property, value)

I’ve only tested with a couple NodePaths so you may need to tweak the code to get a correct result

[Monday]

This will work, get_node_and_resource() is more or less what I was looking for. Thank you!