Question

I added a “console” in my game, in which I can type commands, and receive a response (it’s based on this). I need to be able to access objects that I instantiate in my Game.cs in my console class. I can’t pass them to the constructor, since I don’t know how much there will be once the “engine” is done.

I tried using a method to add the objects to a Dictionnary<string, object> but I can’t access the properties.

What I’d like to be able to do:

Game1.cs

TileMap tileMap = new TileMap();
BakuConsole console;

...

console = new BakuConsole(this, Content.Load<SpriteFont>("ConsoleFont"));
console.AddRef("tileMap", tileMap);

BakuConsole.cs

public void AddRef(/* some args */) {
   // halp!
}

public void Execute(string input) {
    switch (input)
    {
        case "some --command":
            console.WriteLine(g.ToString());
            // execute stuff, with an object that was added via AddRef()
            console.WriteLine("");
            console.Prompt(prompt, Execute);
            break;
        default:
            console.WriteLine("> " + input + " is not a valid command.");
            console.WriteLine("");
            console.Prompt(prompt, Execute);
            break;
    }
}

I hope I am clear enough. Thanks!

Edit:
I just don’t want my constructor to grow too big in case I add more types:

TileMap tileMap = new TileMap();
OtherType1 ot1 = new OtherType1();
OtherType2 ot2 = new OtherType2();
OtherType3 ot3 = new OtherType3();
OtherType4 ot4 = new OtherType4();
OtherType5 ot5 = new OtherType5();

IronPython does exactly what I want to do, and does it via Globals.Add(“string”, object”). However, I can’t seem to find it in the source (of IronPython).

Answer 1

From what you described, you don’t actually need a dictionary, you need several properties on some object, probably directly on BakuConsole;

class BakuConsole
{
    … // your current code here

    public TileMap TileMap { get; set; }
    public OtherType1 OtherType1 { get; set; }
    …
}

Then, you can set it like this:

console.TileMap = tileMap;
console.OtherType1 = otherType1;
…

And then when you use it, you won’t have any problems with accessing properties.