Saving Signal connections programmatically

[Nemo]

Godot Version

4.3

Question

If you create a Scene in the Editor, you can visually connect to methods in your script. When you open the corresponding .tscn file in a text editor, you can find those saved connections at the end of the file like for example:

[connection signal="focus_entered" from="." to="." method="_on_focus_entered"]
[connection signal="focus_exited" from="." to="." method="_on_focus_exited"]

Unfortunately, I can’t quite figure out how to do this programatically.

	var a = Control.new()
	var b = Control.new()
	a.add_child(b)
	b.focus_entered.connect(a.grab_focus) # Just connect some random 
	b.owner = a                           # method for test purposes
	
	var file = PackedScene.new()
	file.pack(a)
	
	ResourceSaver.save(file, "res://test.tscn" )

This does not save the connections. I added this little example to bring my point across, but I’ve also tried creating custom classes with custom signals. I can’t @export the signals though, so that doesn’t work either.

Any help would be appreciated.

[capitanlopez]

Sorry, but if you have the signals connected by code, why do you want to also store them in the scene file? You already have them “stored” in your script.
I don’t see the point in programming the connection of the signals just so that they appear in the scene file. Wouldn’t it be much easier to do it through the editor?
I think I’m missing something.

[Nemo]

I’m creating a plugin that can generate code and I wanna save/load whatever the user has created to/from a resource.

It would be useful to save the signals as well. I can also init the connections when the resource is loaded, but Godot seems to be capable of saving the signals. So why not?

[capitanlopez]

Sorry, my English is not very good. Now I understand what you want.
Yes, there should be a way to do what you want.

[indicainkwell]

Connect your signal with the CONNECT_PERSIST flag.

b.focus_entered.connect(a.grab_focus, CONNECT_PERSIST)

[Nemo]

Thanks man,
I don’t know how I missed that.