Question Get all exposed variables in any script

Hi all!
I'm working on my first asset which I'm planning on releasing, it will be a saving and loading plugin. But one of the features I'm trying to achieve is to select a gameobject and a component attatched to it and select a property to save. But I'm struggling to figure out how to get every property in a component, as I want it to include custom scripts and unity's built-in components.

I tried mixing FieldInfo's and PropertyInfo's, but the PropertyInfo returns variables that are not exposed, which is not what I'm looking for. How would I get this to work with ONLY exposed properties?

Thanks in advance!

 

What a coincidence!! @_geo__ just posted this within the past day or so, which seems like it might do what you're asking:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/can...isible-in-the-inspector.1319025/#post-8341650

 

The default GetProperties does only return public properties. What BindingFlags did you use? I guess what you need depends on your definition of "exposed variables".

 

I'm trying to get only the variables that you can see in the inspector. When I used GetProperties on a transform component, it returned a lot of random variables with names like LocalToWorldMatrix. I'm trying to get it to only return the things you see in the inspector, like position, rotation and scale.

Is this possible?
Thanks.

 

Okay, so you are after all the things that get serialized. Have you tried costructing a SerializedObject from the component? Once you have that you can get the iterator and go through all the serialized properties.

In the thread that Kurt linked the objective was quite the opposite. The OP wanted a solution to inspect non-serialized properties, thus the use of reflections. In your case you might not need reflections.

However, if the serialized object approach does not work for you you could do what I did in the other thread, which is filtering out all the unity internal properties by name. You could also try to check if the property is a primitive type or has the serializeable attribute to filter the list. It's a tedious task, but it might also work.

 

Hey, how would I go about doing the serializeable thing? This stuff is completely new to me and I have no idea how i would go about doing this. Would you mind providing me an example of how I can use a serializedobject to get the serialized properties?
Thanks.

 

The SerializedObject has a constructor which you can hand your object to. Then you can get an iterator in the form of a SerializedProperty from it. Use it to go through the list of serialized properties by calling one of the Next*() methods on it repeatedly until it returns false.

Mind you: the GetEnumerator() is for traversing INTO the current property. That's not what you want (that might get you at your first try).

 

Hey, I tried to do this but I had no success. I am really new to this sort of stuff and I know what I was doing was way off. But could you please read over my code and help me?

Code (CSharp):

1. foreach (Component c in components)
2.         {
3.             SerializedObject obj = new SerializedObject(c);
4.             SerializedProperty it = obj.GetIterator();
5.  
6.             for (int i = 0; i < it.arraySize; i++)
7.             {
8.                 Debug.Log(it.NextVisible(true));
9.             }
10.         }

Thanks for your help!

 

I admit the API takes a bit getting used to.

What you are doing with "it.arraySize" is to get the array length of the VERY FIRST property IF it happens to be an array. So in all cases in which your very first property is not a array it will be 0. As it happens the very first property usually is a reference to the script, so chances are it's always 0 (not an array).

One way to go through an iterator like this is to use a while loop:

Code (CSharp):

1. SerializedObject serializedObject = new SerializedObject(c);
2. serializedObject.Update();
3. // SerializedProperty now point to the first property
4. SerializedProperty serializedProperty = serializedObject.GetIterator();
5. // Enter and skip the script (the script usually is the very first property)
6. serializedProperty.NextVisible(enterChildren: true);
7. // iterate the property in a loop until the Next... returns false
8. while (serializedProperty.NextVisible(enterChildren: false))
9. {
10.     // This is where we now we can access each property through serializedProperty
11.     Debug.Log(serializedProperty.name);
12. }

 

I have just updated the class I made for the thread that Kurt referenced to use serialized properties. Maybe you can extract what you need from there:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. using UnityEngine;
3.  
4. #if UNITY_EDITOR
5. using System.Reflection;
6. using UnityEditor;
7. using UnityEngine.SceneManagement;
8. using UnityEditor.Build.Reporting;
9. using UnityEditor.Build;
10. #endif
11.  
12. public class CustomSerializedPropertyInspector : MonoBehaviour
13. {
14.     public Component Target;
15.     public string PropertyName;
16. }
17.  
18. #if UNITY_EDITOR
19. [CustomEditor(typeof(CustomSerializedPropertyInspector))]
20. public class CustomSerializedPropertyInspectorEditor : Editor
21. {
22.     SerializedProperty targetProp;
23.     SerializedProperty propertyNameProp;
24.     SerializedObject _tmpSerializedObject; // Editor has a member called serializedProperty. Dont confuse this with it.
25.     Component _lastComp;
26.  
27.     void OnEnable()
28.     {
29.         targetProp = serializedObject.FindProperty("Target");
30.         propertyNameProp = serializedObject.FindProperty("PropertyName");
31.     }
32.  
33.     public override void OnInspectorGUI()
34.     {
35.         EditorGUILayout.PropertyField(targetProp);
36.  
37.         Component targetComp = targetProp.objectReferenceValue as Component;
38.         if (targetComp == null)
39.         {
40.             GUILayout.Label("No target selected.");
41.             return;
42.         }
43.  
44.         // Did the target change?
45.         if(targetComp != _lastComp)
46.         {
47.             _lastComp = targetComp;
48.             _tmpSerializedObject = new SerializedObject(targetComp);
49.             propertyNameProp.stringValue = null;
50.         }
51.         if(_tmpSerializedObject != null)
52.             _tmpSerializedObject.Update();
53.         SerializedProperty serializedProperty;
54.  
55.         // fetch the value and draw it
56.         if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(propertyNameProp.stringValue))
57.         {
58.             GUILayout.BeginHorizontal();
59.             GUILayout.Label(propertyNameProp.stringValue + ":");
60.             GUILayout.FlexibleSpace();
61.             string value = "null";
62.  
63.             // SerializedProperty now point to the first property
64.             serializedProperty = _tmpSerializedObject.GetIterator();
65.             // Enter and skip the script (the script usually is the very first property)
66.             serializedProperty.NextVisible(enterChildren: true);
67.             // iterate the property in a loop until the Next... returns false
68.             while (serializedProperty.NextVisible(enterChildren: false))
69.             {
70.                 // This is where we now we can access each property through serializedProperty
71.                 if (serializedProperty.name == propertyNameProp.stringValue)
72.                     value = PropertyValueToString(serializedProperty);
73.             }
74.             GUILayout.Label(value);
75.             GUILayout.EndHorizontal();
76.         }
77.         else
78.         {
79.             GUILayout.BeginHorizontal();
80.             GUILayout.Label("Property:");
81.             GUILayout.FlexibleSpace();
82.             GUILayout.Label("No property selected.");
83.             GUILayout.EndHorizontal();
84.         }
85.  
86.         // search throuch the type and list the properties
87.         // SerializedProperty now point to the first property
88.         serializedProperty = _tmpSerializedObject.GetIterator();
89.         // Enter and skip the script (the script usually is the very first property)
90.         serializedProperty.NextVisible(enterChildren: true);
91.         // iterate the properties of the script in a loop until NextVisible() returns false
92.         while (serializedProperty.NextVisible(enterChildren: false))
93.         {
94.             GUI.enabled = serializedProperty.name != propertyNameProp.stringValue;
95.             if (GUILayout.Button(serializedProperty.name))
96.             {
97.                 propertyNameProp.stringValue = serializedProperty.name;
98.             }
99.             GUI.enabled = true;
100.         }
101.  
102.         serializedObject.ApplyModifiedProperties();
103.     }
104.  
105.     public static string PropertyValueToString(SerializedProperty serializedProperty)
106.     {
107.         switch (serializedProperty.propertyType)
108.         {
109.             case SerializedPropertyType.Integer:
110.                 return serializedProperty.intValue.ToString();
111.             case SerializedPropertyType.Boolean:
112.                 return serializedProperty.boolValue.ToString();
113.             case SerializedPropertyType.Float:
114.                 return serializedProperty.floatValue.ToString();
115.             case SerializedPropertyType.String:
116.                 return serializedProperty.stringValue;
117.             case SerializedPropertyType.Vector2:
118.                 return serializedProperty.vector2Value.ToString();
119.             case SerializedPropertyType.Vector3:
120.                 return serializedProperty.vector3Value.ToString();
121.             // Lots of other types
122.             default:
123.                 return serializedProperty.ToString();
124.         }
125.     }
126. }
127.  
128. public class CustomSerializedPropertyInspectorRemover : IProcessSceneWithReport
129. {
130.     public int callbackOrder => 0;
131.  
132.     public void OnProcessScene(Scene scene, BuildReport report)
133.     {
134.         if (EditorApplication.isPlayingOrWillChangePlaymode)
135.             return;
136.  
137.         var roots = scene.GetRootGameObjects();
138.         foreach (var root in roots)
139.         {
140.             var comps = root.GetComponentsInChildren<CustomSerializedPropertyInspector>(includeInactive: true);
141.             foreach (var comp in comps)
142.             {
143.                 Object.DestroyImmediate(comp);
144.             }
145.         }
146.     }
147. }
148. #endif
149.  

 

Ah thanks! That works perfectly. I have one more question though, do you know why the serializedProperty is not getting some properties? Like it doesn't show rotation or world position?
Thanks.

 

Maybe try Next() instead of NextVisible() or maybe some properties are derived from others (worldPosition for example is derived from localPosition and thus not serialized). You'll have to dig around to find out.

 

Thanks. That works!
I just need help with one more thing if you don't mind. How do I set the property's value using the serializedProperty instance of it?
For example, I'm trying to load data from a file, and I have the serializedProperty version of the property and I can use serializedProperty.SetValue(); but that does not affect the actual components version of the property. How would I make it change the default property?

Thanks.

 

The SerializedObject and the Properties are just copies of the data.
That's why you call Update() before using it and you also have to call Apply() after changing it.

See the docs here:
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/SerializedObject.ApplyModifiedProperties.html

 

Hey, so I'm having one final problem. When I try to build the project, I get errors in the console "the type or namespace "SerializedProperty" cannot be found".
Would you know why I can't use SerializedProperties in my build?
Thanks.

 

They are part of the EDITOR namespace and thus not available in builds.
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/SerializedProperty.html