Creating an Enum as the parameter to the Steer() function

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#1

Greetings

Instead of using int values to track if my car is steering left or right (and remembering which one is which) I thought of using an enum with those values.

[Serializable]
public enum SteerDirection
{
    Left = -1,
    Right = 1,
    None = 0
}

However when I try to associate my Steer(SteerDirection value) on the inspector, this does not show up. I tried adding the serializable tag, or updating some of the references in the Car.cs class.

I was wondering if anyone had a similar experience, or if there’s any arguments against this approach. On regular non-engine programming it is recommended to avoid “magic numbers” so that was my attempted approach here.

Note: Tagging as talk, as it’s more for discussion than a direct quesion. I can continue the lesson using magic numbers :slight_smile:

#2

Might be best to look this up on a forum to see if SerializeField etc can be used with enum values.

#3

This worked for me

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public class Car : MonoBehaviour
{
    public enum SteerDirection
    {
        Left = -1,
        Right = 1,
        None = 0
    }

    [SerializeField] private float speed = 10f;
    [SerializeField] private float speedGainOverTime = 0.2f;
    [SerializeField] private float turnSpeed = 200f;
    [SerializeField] private SteerDirection steerDirection = SteerDirection.None;

    void Update()
    {
        speed += speedGainOverTime * Time.deltaTime;

        transform.Rotate(0f, (float)steerDirection * turnSpeed * Time.deltaTime, 0f);

        transform.Translate(Vector3.forward * speed * Time.deltaTime);

    }

    public void Steer(int value)
    {
        if(value == -1)
        {
            steerDirection = SteerDirection.Left;
        }
        else if(value == 1)
        {
            steerDirection = SteerDirection.Right;
        }
        else if(value == 0)
        {
            steerDirection = SteerDirection.None;
        }

    }
}

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