weird shenanigans with widgets and arrays.

Slayer

This is a very confusing issue that I don't even know what is causing it so figured I would report it so it can be looked into, or explained.

Does the issue occur in the editor or during gameplay?

gameplay

If it's a gameplay issue, please specify which movement system and camera type you're using (free movement vs. grid movement, third-person vs. first-person) or N/A if not applicable:

N/A

Briefly describe the issue you're experiencing:

I have a script (posted below) that is supposed to loop through an array and build a line seperated list.
However, it ONLY works if I print the list to the console as I loop through.
The moment I remove the print commands, it only shows the last entry.

Script:

global.property["arr"] = array["Bread", "Apples", "Cheese", "Wine", "Grapes", "Rope"];
$counter = global.property["arr"].size();

for $itm in global.property["arr"] do
	$counter -= 1;
	if $counter > 0 then // if not last entry in array, add a \n
		widget["cont"].element["0001"].text = widget["cont"].element["0001"].text + $itm + "\n";
		print(widget["cont"].element["0001"].text);
	else
		widget["cont"].element["0001"].text = widget["cont"].element["0001"].text + $itm;
		print(widget["cont"].element["0001"].text);
	end;
end;

List with printed widget text throughout the loop:

List with commented out printed widget text throughout the loop:

Are there any errors in the in-game debug console or external console window?

No

Provide the steps necessary to reproduce the issue:

Create a widget with a text label.

Put this code on Startup.

Test first with the print commands...when showing the widget, it will be a formatted list.

Test again by commenting out the print commands, and show the widget to see the last item only. (rope)

Provide a download link to the bare bones project (strongly recommended if it's an in-game issue, since this helps significantly when attempting to reproduce it; the report will also be given more priority in this case):

I'll add one later.

Justin

Slayer That makes sense! Since modifying widget elements makes a deferred function call, but the text of the element is retrieved immediately again in the next loop, it's possible that the UI hasn't been updated yet and will keep adding the current string to an empty string. I think in this scenario the best method would be to append all of the strings together into a local variable and then assign the final result to the text label afterwards.

Slayer

This is one instance where ChatGPT was quite useful!

It suggested it might be because of GUI refresh process and suggested adding a wait() instead of the print's.

Sure enough, just ensuring that each loop through had a wait() before writing to the widget text label resulting ina successful output.

global.property["arr"] = array["Bread", "Apples", "Cheese", "Wine", "Grapes", "Rope"];
$counter = global.property["arr"].size();
global.property["list_items"] = "";
for $itm in global.property["arr"] do
	$counter -= 1;
	if $counter > 0 then
		wait(0.5);
		widget["cont"].element["0001"].text = widget["cont"].element["0001"].text + $itm + "\n";
		//print(widget["cont"].element["0001"].text);
	else
		widget["cont"].element["0001"].text = widget["cont"].element["0001"].text + $itm;
		//print(widget["cont"].element["0001"].text);
	end;
end;