Realize this challenge with AActor::GetDebugName()

[HanZolo]

I hope I don’t land this question in the wrong section here, I just migrated from Udemy, so please bear with me

Doing the challenge myself, I thought it would be a great idea to use GetDebugName instead of GetName() since I looked it up in the UE documentation and the description seemed quite fitting:
" Retrieves actor’s name used for logging, or string “NULL” if Actor is null ".

However, I can’t seem to make it work. I know it wants an AActor as a parameter, so that would be
GetDebugName( GetOwner ) no ? and since it returns a FString anyways I wouldn’t have to transform it. However, this line does not work:

UE_LOG(LogTemp, Error, TEXT("%s"), *GetDebugName(GetOwner() ));

The error is:
F:\Unreal_Projects\Building_Escape02\Source\Building_Escape02\OpenDoor.cpp(29) : error C3861: ‘GetDebugName’: identifier not found

i did: #include “GameFramework/Actor.h”

[DanM]

It’s a a static member function so you would call it like so

UE_LOG(LogTemp, Error, TEXT("%s"), *AActor::GetDebugName(GetOwner()));

[HanZolo]

Thank you very much, and congrats on your anniversary of joining this community
Of course you solved my problem, but I was wondering since only the scope is what I was missing, when exactly do I have to add that to functions?

I’m sure I haven’t fully understood the static keyword. Other functions are member functions as well no?
Thank you.

[DanM]

@HanZolo

when exactly do I have to add that to functions?

When it’s marked as static.

@HanZolo

I’m sure I haven’t fully understood the static keyword.

Not surprising as it means at least 3 different things.

1. static at namespace scope means that it has static storage duration and internal linkage

   static void Foo()
   {
       //code ...
   }
   static int Bar = 0;
   

2. static at block scope means that it has static storage duration and is initialised once.

   void Foo()
   {
      static int value = 10; // happens *once* the first time Foo() is called
   }
   

3. static for class members means it’s not bound to any particular instance.

   class AActor
   {
       static FString GetDebugName(AActor*);
   };
   

4. Then you also have things like static_assert and static_cast which is a compile time assert and cast respectively.

info on storage duration and linkage

---

That third one is the meaning here. So whilst it’s part of the class it’s not tied to any instance of the class.