GDScript Variables References

[dxur]

Describe the project you are working on

Implementing something similar to references in c++ then you will be able to set variable value from its reference.

Syntax

var int_ref:Ref[float]
int_ref = &int_var
# or
int_ref = ref_of(int_var)

Describe the problem or limitation you are having in your project

N/A

Describe the feature / enhancement and how it helps to overcome the problem or limitation

N/A

Describe how your proposal will work, with code, pseudo-code, mock-ups, and/or diagrams

N/A

If this enhancement will not be used often, can it be worked around with a few lines of script?

N/A

Is there a reason why this should be core and not an add-on in the asset library?

THIS NEED TO BE IMPLEMENTED ON THE GDSCRIPT PARSER.

[Calinou]

Can you give any concrete use cases for this feature? Most scripting languages don't feature pointers/references like this.

[dxur]

this will help editing values from the function "as passing a reference" , then i have started implementing this as my college uses GDscript and godot to test AI functions "as godot 4 support compute shaders and gdextention", then i think it will be a good enhancement making the code more readable ...
Then I'm asking for if is it worth it spend some time implementing it, then i don't need a lot of help i know what I'm doing...

[Calinou]

What I mean is, why would AI need references instead of variables that are passed by value? As far as I know, there isn't anything in programming that requires references to be available in the language.

[dxur]

Not just for AI, you know that GdScript support references for objects this will be for variables and that set. It doesn't need more explanation. Anyway, I will implement this then I'll be happy to add this to the official release

[dxur]

Then references are just the safe version of pointers.

[KoBeWi]

C# supports variable references using ref. There was a proposal to make use of it in Tweens: #3220
I think this feature would be a nice complement for Callables. It would allow to fix some methods that still use strings.