Global Array Variable in Screengraph

Archived
1

I’m trying to set some m.global values in an array, but the push command is not setting anything. What am I missing?

Following is in main.brs

m.global = screen.getGlobalNode()
m.global.addFields( {accessToken: []} )
m.global.accessToken.Push("testing_123")
print "Array Count: "; m.global.accessToken.Count()
print "Array Data: "; m.global.accessToken

Output in Debugger:

Array Count:  0
Array Data: <Component: roArray> =
[
]

Thanks
Chris

2

I have found some weirdness with trying to write to arrays and associative arrays that are members of a node.
Try making a copy of the array, then updating it, then assigning the entire copied array to the field.

3

i modded quoted code a bit to focus on the issue:

“taylorcw” wrote:

globalNode = screen.getGlobalNode()
globalNode.addFields( {accessToken: []} )
globalNode.accessToken.Push("testing_123")

Right, that won’t work as expected. The reason being that when you access RSG node field, a copy is being made and that’s what the operation works on. The globalNode is a Node - and even as using dot-notation seems like a garden-variety assoc.array access - it isn’t. It does not return “the” references to the stored object, it returns “a” reference to a deep-copy of it - with all consequences from that, like being unable to mutate the original or the copy being slow.

When evaluating above expression globalNode.accessToken.Push("testing_123"), first a copy of accessToken content is made, then .push() is called on it, which appends the new value - and on completion of the operation, the array is dropped (de-referenced and thus GC’d), as if that call were .push(“testing_123”).

See this discussed more in e.g. https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f … 27#p533825

There is no single elegant workaround. Depending on the use case, sometimes it’s better to replace nested structures of roArray/roAA with hierarchical Node structures. I.e. translate roAA into node fields (cue addFields()) and roArray into children (cue addChildren()).

4

Thanks for the replies. This new screengraph programming is going to kill me with nuances like this.

@tim_beynart – i used your suggestion and it worked.

  testArray=createObject("roArray", 0, true)
  testArray.Push("testing_123")

  m.global.addFields( {accessToken: []} )
  
  m.global.accessToken = testArray
  print "Array Count: "; m.global.accessToken.Count()
  print "Array Data: "; m.global.accessToken

Output:

Array Count:  1
Array Data: <Component: roArray> =
[
    "testing_123"
]

I was able to to Push into a local array followed by m.global.accessToken replace on other nodes which seems to be working.

Thanks guys!