How to declare a global named enum?

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:bust_in_silhouette: Asked By alexzheng

I want to share a named enum type in different scenes.

For example
In SceneA:
export(MyNamedEnum) var type

In SceneB
export(MyNamedEnum) var type

MyNamedEnum is somethings like this:
enum MyNamedEnum {TYPE_1, TYPE_2}

The question is where can I define this MyNamedEnum for global use?

I tried to define it in an autoload node called global, and use it like:
export(global.MyNamedEnum) var type

That doesn’t work.

The parse global.MyNamedEnum can work in instance functions but not in the export definition.

There is no relationship between SceneA and SceneB.

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2
:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: Zylann

It is not possible to declare global enums directly, because any GDScript thing exists within a class (i.e a script for .gd files, that’s the same).
So if you want to re-use the same enum in multiple places, you have to create a script, which contains only that enum:

MyNamedEnum.gd:

enum MyNamedEnum {
    TYPE1,
    TYPE2
}

And then, use it by “import”:

const MyNamedEnum = preload("path/to/MyNamedEnum.gd")

func _ready():
    print(MyNamedEnum.TYPE1)

I dont’t know if that works when used with export though.

In Godot 3.1, there is a way to almost make it global, by giving a global class name to the script containing the enum:

# At the top of MyNamedEnum.gd
class_name MyNamedEnum

Which means MyNamedEnum will be available everywhere without the need for preload. That should work for const and static func as well.

The preload method works for export.
The class_name does not.

Thanks.

alexzheng | 2019-02-17 15:49

3
:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: salihkallai

Godot 4 solution:

Create a gdscript file like this

class_name Type
enum {
    RESOURCE,
    FOOD
}

Then you can call it from anywhere like this:

Type.FOOD

I am using Godot v4.0.1.

It works for one enum type.
If you try to create a second gdscript files with a different enum, it prints the error:

Parse Error: Class “Type” hides a global script class.

Also, I can assign the enum values, but declaring the type of a variable or parameter does not work either. In the example above, declaring:

var x:Type = Type.FOOD

This would result in the following error:
Parse Error: Cannot assign a value of type Type. to variable “x” with specified type Type.

fabioamc | 2023-04-10 20:48

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4
:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: Ethergeist

A Modified Godot 4 Solution

Constants.gd

  class_name Constants
   enum PlayerTypes {
      LOCAL,
      REMOTE
    }

Then to use this with another class and define a type

class_name Player
extends CharacterBody3D

@export var type: Constants.PlayerType = Constants.PlayerType.LOCAL
...

The variable exported to the editor will be a drop down list with the values in the PlayerType enum. Seems to work in any gdscript file without having to use preload.

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