Description

Main purpose of these classes - is to be added as components to GameObjects, thus connecting these GameObjects to table's rows.

These classes are Unity standard components and can be added to any GameObject in the Inspector. After you added one of such classes to GameObject, you can choose which row should be connected, the correct table(meta) will be automatically selected

Alternatives

Using these components is not the only option to create a serializable reference to the database row. For other alternatives, read this section Referencing tables, fields, rows and cells from your own MonoBehaviour scripts

Difference from BGEntityGo

Without these classes you would use generic BGEntityGo component to hook up GameObject to database.

So, what is the difference between BGEntityGo and generated class?

1. You don't have to chose meta- it'll be automatically chosen
2. Instead of using basic API for accessing fields like this: var intValue = Get<int>("intField"); you have additional property generated for each field, so you can use code like this var intValue = intField;
3. Additionally, you can choose to use classes, generated by ExtensionClasses generator, so you can easily navigate by relational fields. More information about it below.

Using classes, generated by ExtensionClasses

Question: why bother to use those classes? Answer: because of relational fields.

There are 3 fields in BGDatabase, that are relations (relationSingle,relationMultiple and nested). As a value they return the reference(s) to another row(s) (BGEntity).

Here is the simple example: Table1 has a relationSingle field called Relation, that points to a row from Table2.

Without using ExtensionClasses you can access Relation field value with such code

    BGEntity t2Value = t1.Relation;

So, if t1 - is first row of Table1, t2Value will be a first row of Table2, However it's type - is basic type: BGEntity. So you can access Table2.intField only with basic API like so: t2Value.Get<int>("intField")

That is certainly not what we want. So using ExtensionClasses makes relational value to be cast to be the type, generated by ExtensionClasses , e.g.

    Table2 t2Value = t1.Relation;
    var intValue = t2Value.intField;

How to generate

1. Open BGDatabase window from Unity menu Window->BGDatabase
2. Choose Settings->CodeGen
3. Fill in parameters and press Generate button

What is generated, exactly?

We will use MyTable as a table name (generated class name) and 2 fields (name string, gold int) for illustration purpose.

Parameters