InputEvent.get_action_type() method.

[nakano15]

I posted about this suggestion earlier on Steam, but I'll still talk about it bellow.

My suggestion is that the InputEvent objects would get the "get_action_type()" method, which will return the string of the action received by _input() method.

The idea for this, is to avoid calling multiple ifs and else ifs checking for multiple different inputs, and instead use that method and place it into a match check for what input that is.

I'll use the example I used on the thread again showcasing how input checking works right now:
func _input(event: InputEvent) -> void: if (event.is_action("MoveForward")): Move(0, 1) elif (event.is_action("MoveBackward")): Move(0, -1) elif (event.is_action("MoveLeft")): Move(-1, 0) elif (event.is_action("MoveRight")): Move(1, 0) elif (event.is_action("Attack")): Attack()
The input above is checked with a if, and a bunch of else ifs checking each different action that the event
is currently performing.

That could have been replaced by a method returning the event action string, which could be checked by a match switch:
func _input(event: InputEvent) -> void: match (event.get_action_type()): "MoveForward": Move(0, 1) "MoveBackward": Move(0, -1) "MoveLeft": Move(-1, 0) "MoveRight": Move(1, 0) "Attack": Attack()
Making input checking handier and better readable.

That's my idea for InputEvent. And yeah, I'm aware that depending on project type, that method of checking input for movement is not good. This is just an example input showing the difference.

[theraot]

It might be wasting work. The way Godot figure out if an InputEvent is a particular action is by matching it with the stored InputEvents that are configured for action you asked. Thus, a method to get the action from the InputEvent would match it against all the actions, even those you are not interested in.

So, here is an idea: what if the method gets an array of actions to match against? that way the InputEvent is only matched against the ones you are interested. It could still return the action and you could still match it.

[nakano15]

Actually, this thread surged out of a misconception from InputEvent, since I thought there was only one input registered on it.

Maybe the idea of returning an array with selected actions could work, but would require a for loop to check each instance, and the returning of an array, alongside the for loop, I'm not sure if that is a good idea for performance.

[theraot]

I'm not saying it returning an array, I'm saying you pass an array. It can return the first one for which it found a match, and by having a limited list to check, it avoid checking for actions you don't care for. If you think about it, the way we write the input code is basically the same: we check (sing ifs) the actions in a particular order.

For a game it - sometimes - makes sense that some actions take precedent over others, which you would convey in the order you pass the items in the array.

And if this does not make sense, we still have the old way of doing it, so I see little harm in adding it as an alternative way.

---

Addendum, perhaps it is clearer if I post an idea of how it would look like:

var action := event.find_matching_action(["MoveForward", "MoveBackward", "MoveLeft", "MoveRight", "Attack"])
match action:
    "MoveForward":
        pass
    # ...

[nakano15]

Oh, I see what you're saying. But I don't know if it would work well if there's multiple actions, like MoveForward and MoveRight being pressed.