UProperty

A UProperty is a special kind of UField which contains a ref to some value of an object. Also, it helps to construct and destruct that value.

Get the value reference

Getting some value reference through a UProperty is pretty straight forward. First you need to get the UProperty of the corresponding UClass your UObject uses, then you just need to call the getValue method and provide the object (context) itself so the UProperty know from where it should extract the value from.

UObject* obj;
UProperty* prop;
ValueType* val = prop->getValue<ValueType>(obj);

As you can see, you need to give the function the c value type cause it casts the value for you directly. To get the final value just dereference it. You're also able to set the value by just using the c reference.

If the value stored in the instance is a pointer, you need to use as ValueType a pointer. f.e. a UObjectProperty contains not the UObject but a pointer to it!

Building

The BPI provides the SML::Paks::PropertyBuilder-Class in assets/BPInterface.h to make declaring and defining a custom UProperty easier. This class has multiple types of static initializer function for different types of UPropertys <UProperty>.

  • attrib

    This function initializes a PropertyBuilder for an attribute

  • param

    This function initializes a PropertyBuilder for the use as an input parameter for a UFunction

  • outParam

    This function initializes a PropertyBuilder for the use as an output parameter for a UFunction

To get an Returnvalue-Property for a UFunction, add the EPropertyFlag::Prop_RetVal-Flag to a out param.

When you call one of this function you need to pass the property-type and the name of the property.

Flags

The builder class provides the addFlag and removeFlag methods for manipulating the property flag register.

Class-Type

Some types like Object need a UClass to know which UObjects are allowed in that reference. For this purpose, there is the classFunc method which wants a function pointer to a function which returns the wanted UClass.

You can use the provided "StaticClass" function of default UObject -types for this.

Booleans

Booleans are tricky. They need a so-called bit-set-function. To make this easier the PropertyBuilder-Class provides the bool function. This function has a template which needs to be a C++ "pointer-to-member" which points to the attribute in your native class.

class UTestObj {
    bool isSomething;
}

getPropBuilderRef().bool<&UTestObj::isSomething>()

Offset

Some properties need the offset of the value location to the object-base-pointer like generic ones (f.e. int and Object). With the off function you can set that offset, but if you don’t set that value then the other builder classes set that offset automatically. They will look for the last given properties offset, add the used byte count onto the offset and then use that one as the new one.

Examples

class UTestClass {
    bool firstProp;
    float nonProp;
    int seccondProp;
    AActor* thirdProp;
}

struct FuncParams {
    int input;
    FString output;
    bool returnVal;
}

PropertyBuilder::attrib(EPropertyClass::Bool, "FirstProp").bool<&UTetsClass::firstProp>();
PropertyBuilder::attrib(EPropertyClass::Int, "WierdName").off(sizeof(bool)+sizeof(float));
PropertyBuilder::attrib(EPropertyClass::Object, "ThirdProp").classFunc(&AActor::StaticClass);

PropertyBuilder::param(EPropertyClass::Int, "input");
PropertyBuilder::outParam(EPropertyClass::Str, "output");
PropertyBuilder::outParam(EPropertyClass::bool, "retVal").addFlag(EPropertyFlag::Prop_ReturnVal);

Finishing

To finish the build you just need to execute the build function which returns a pointer to the proper description structure. This structure is managed by the PropertyBuilder, that means when the PropertyBuilder runs out of scope, the description structure is invalid! That’s why other builder classes want the builder directly and not the build description.