Multidimensional Array -- saving as a field on a Component?

This came up while I was looking into A* pathfinding for tilemaps. I wanted to loop through a Tilemap2D's tiles, create a 2D array out of them, and then save the resulting array into a component so that I would not need to rebuild it every time I need to run pathfinding. But I don't see an appropriate field type for saving a multidimensional array, and possibly that's by design?

If that's not possible (or even if it is) I could also just rebuild the array each time, or write the pathfinding algorithm to work directly with the 1D tiles array, or save the 2D array as a global variable in the pathfinding system. Anyone have thoughts on which approach is most in the ECS spirit? =)

 

I think you can use a static class to hold the array

Code (JavaScript):

1. namespace game {
2. export class GameManager {
3. public static map: number[] ;
4. }
5. }

access via game.GameManager.map;

I belive

 

i was surprised to see that arrays work on components at all, as these are not currently allowed in 'non-tiny' ECS components (even fixed arrays were removed in favor of dynamic buffers). i'd second @vincismurf and consider putting this at the system level.

you will probably find similar recommendations in the main ECS sub-forum, like here.