public/private fields on ScriptableObjects

I want to make information containers for my game's enemies with ScriptableObjects.
Should I set the variables I want to access from other Scripts referencing the ScriptableObjects as public or private with getters?

Which one is safer?

Code (CSharp):

1. public class Enemy : ScriptableObject{
2.     public string _eName;
3.     public float _damage;
4. }
5.  
6. public class Enemy : ScriptableObject{
7.     [SerializeField] private string _eName;
8.     [SerializeField] private float _damage;
9.  
10.     public string Name { get { return _eName; }}
11.     public float Damage { get { return _damage; }}
12. }

 

That's like choosing between two shotguns, with one of them having a bigger safety switch, and asking which one is safer.

I don't know man, who's gonna use it?

 

Second way is best.

You can update the properties to look like:

public string Name => _eName;

 

Would that work only as a getter?

 

Thing is wanna make an MMORPG so I gotta make super safe. So the one with the bigger safe actually IS better.

 

Related to using ScriptableObjects, remember that their lifetime in the editor begins when you first access them, and then they do not go away until you exit Unity.

This may seem irrelevant, but this means you can't rely on OnEnable/OnDisable like you can on Monobehaviours.

EDIT from June 19, 2021: Unity has changed. When I wrote the above you couldn't rely on OnEnable / OnDisable with every run. Sometime between then and now, Unity began to properly support the OnEnable / OnDisable calls for ScriptableObjects at each STOP->PLAY->STOP transition. But don't count on it! Test your version of Unity to find out, it will take 30 second of adding a Debug.Log().

Another subtlety comes from private variables, such as if you have an "initialized" boolean in there (private) that one of your getters use. That boolean will be preserved between times you press PLAY in the editor, unless you decorate it with a NonSerializedAttribute:

Code (csharp):

1.     [NonSerialized] private    string    TheData;

That way every time you press PLAY, TheData will be restored to null, as you expect with other classes.

 

Yeah, I learned that a while back while playing around with ScriptaclbeObjects. I wanna use them only to retrieve data.

 

You don't have to make every little aspect of the code "super safe". Both approaches would be perfectly fine.

 

WUt?
You're not saving yourself from client hacks if that's your concern.
You're just saving yourself from having another programmer (or yourself) mindlessly editing your SO during runtime, which is completely unnecessary and likely won't happen by accident.
What you're not saving yourself from, is an illusion of being "protected".

Like I already said, from whom? You should've answered to that question immediately, instead of acting smart, because you obviously don't understand the purpose of getters and setters in the first place.

 

My main concern are players modifying the memory and getting stuff easily. No need to be an ass. If you wanna teach me something, go right ahead.
.