@soupstitute I recommend trying @pauldrewett 's solution. Your solution is overly complex and honestly not good coding practice. It hides the fact that youâre passing by reference something that is going to have its value changed. Your code is going to be much cleaner and easier to debug if you assign the return value to content.
Also, ret is a very confusing variable name.
Youâre definitely working against how GDScript works. TBH your code looks like really old C pointer dereferencing code.
Personally, even though Godot supports inner classes, I do not think theyâre really helpful in GDScript. It makes the structure of your code harder to read and AFAIK, it doesnât improve performance at all. I find it annoying enough to deal with in the Godot engine code itself in C.
This is because you are over-optimizing your code before getting it working. Specifically, you are using a RefCounted, which cleans itself up as soon as itâs no longer being used. So, you call it, it returns, thinks itâs done and is killing itself. Godot passes by reference, and you are losing the reference to the variable because youâre destroying it -potentially while itâs being passed.
Also, JsonParser should probably be a singleton - which in Godot means making it an Autoload. That also means just inheriting a good ole Node.
Hereâs the code for my version of your JsonParser class:
extends Node
const SETTINGS_PATH = "user://configuration.settings"
const SAVE_GAME_PATH = "user://game.save"
## If this value is On, save_game() will be called when the player quits the game.
@export var save_on_quit: bool = false
var configuration_settings: Dictionary
var game_information: Dictionary
var is_ready = false
func _ready() -> void:
if FileAccess.file_exists(SETTINGS_PATH):
configuration_settings = _load_file(SETTINGS_PATH)
ready.connect(func(): is_ready = true)
func _notification(what) -> void:
match what:
NOTIFICATION_WM_CLOSE_REQUEST: #Called when the application quits.
if save_on_quit:
save_game()
## To add a value to be saved, add a node to the "Persist" Global Group on
## the Nodes tab. Then implement save_node() and load_node() functions.
## The first function should return a value to store, and the second should
## use that value to load the information. Make sure the load function has a
## await Signal(self, "ready") line at the top so it doesn't try to load values
## before the node exists. If you need to store multiple values, use a
## dictionary or changes later will result in save/load errors.
func save_game() -> bool:
var saved_nodes = get_tree().get_nodes_in_group("Persist")
for node in saved_nodes:
# Check the node has a save function.
if not node.has_method("save_node"):
print("Setting node '%s' is missing a save_node() function, skipped" % node.name)
continue
game_information[node.name] = node.save_node()
print("Saving Info for %s: %s" % [node.name, game_information[node.name]])
return _save_file(game_information, SAVE_GAME_PATH)
func load_game() -> void:
game_information = _load_file(SAVE_GAME_PATH)
if game_information.is_empty():
return
var saved_nodes = get_tree().get_nodes_in_group("Persist")
for node in saved_nodes:
# Check the node has a load function.
if not node.has_method("load_node"):
print("Setting node '%s' is missing a load_node() function, skipped" % node.name)
continue
# Check if we have information to load for the value
if game_information.has(node.name):
print("Loading Info for %s: %s" % [node.name, game_information[node.name]])
node.load_node(game_information[node.name])
## To add a setting to be saved, implement save_setting() functions. It should
## return a value to store. If you need to store multiple values, use a
## dictionary or any later changes will result in save/load errors.
## Call this function using Setting.save_setting(self)
## NOTE: The node name must be unique or settings will get overwritten.
func save_setting(data: Variant, category: String) -> void:
configuration_settings[category] = data
_save_file(configuration_settings, SETTINGS_PATH)
## To add a setting to be loaded, implement a load_setting() function. It should
## use the passed value(s) to configure the node. Make sure the load function
## has an await Signal(self, "ready") line at the top so it doesn't try to load
## values before the node exists.
## Call this function using Setting.load_setting(self)
func load_setting(category: String) -> Variant:
if !is_ready:
if FileAccess.file_exists(SETTINGS_PATH):
configuration_settings = _load_file(SETTINGS_PATH)
if configuration_settings.has(category):
return configuration_settings[category]
return ERR_DOES_NOT_EXIST
## Takes data and serializes it for saving.
func _serialize_data(data: Variant) -> String:
return JSON.stringify(data)
## Takes serialized data and deserializes it for loading.
func _deserialize_data(data: String) -> Variant:
var json = JSON.new()
var error = json.parse(data)
if error == OK:
return json.data
else:
print("JSON Parse Error: ", json.get_error_message(), " in ", data, " at line ", json.get_error_line())
return null
func _save_file(save_information: Dictionary, path: String) -> bool:
var file = FileAccess.open(path, FileAccess.WRITE)
if file == null:
print("File '%s' could not be opened. File not saved." % path)
return false
file.store_var(save_information)
return true
func _load_file(path: String) -> Variant:
if not FileAccess.file_exists(path):
print("File '%s' does not exist. File not loaded." % path)
var return_value: Dictionary = {}
return return_value
var file = FileAccess.open(path, FileAccess.READ)
return file.get_var()
I call it Disk. I made it a plugin. It you want to try it out, you can take a look here and get a copy here: GitHub - dragonforge-dev/dragonforge-disk: An Autoload singleton to handle saving and loading of game data
