'Global' Enum

1

I’d like to use an enum (I think!) to represent a game state which is available to various classes (files) like this:

enum State {
    HIDING;
    SEEKING;
}

Am I right in thinking this has to be declared outside of any class and is therefore only accessible in the file in which it is declared? I can’t seem to make it work any other way.

1 Like
2

enum is just a set of values, you later can assign one of its values to a variable:

About global state, just use static property as in my example.

3

Thanks for the reply. But doesn’t that set up mean that the value of the static variable ‘state’ can only changed within that class? I I have a class Test2 in another file it wouldn’t know about the enum so how could code in that class change the state?

4

You can change the static variable wherever you want.

5

Sorry if I’m being dense but that doesn’t seem to work if class Test2 is in a different file.

‘Type not found : State’

6

The static var in Test2 class is public?

7

Test.hx:

class Test {
    public static var state = State.HIDING;
    
    static function main() {
        trace(Test.state);
        Test2.seek();
        trace(Test.state);
        Test2.hide();
        trace(Test.state);
    }
}

enum State {
    HIDING;
    SEEKING;
}

Test2.hx:

class Test2 {  
    public static function hide() {
        Test.state = State.HIDING;
    }
    
    public static function seek() {
        Test.state = State.SEEKING;
    }
}


Test2.hx:7: characters 21-26 : Type not found : State
Test2.hx:3: characters 21-26 : Type not found : State

Admittedly I wouldn’t be calling functions in Test2 from Test to set the state but I might want to change the state within some other function in Test2, eg if Test2 handled the game menu I might want to change the game state from one of its methods.

1 Like
8

import Test.State;

Test is a module which has class Test (yeah) and enum State inside it. This is actually pretty funny, because

import Test.State; // Test is a module Test, you are importing enum
import Test.state; // Test is a class Test, you are importing static field

That’s why you can do Test.State.HIDING but not typedef X = Test; X.State.HIDING. Module level function may solve this kind of … thing. But maybe not.

1 Like
9

Ah I see, thanks to you both for the help.

As Test is the main class I hadn’t considered it could be treated as a module and therefore any part of it imported into Test2.