How to get the type of a Gameobject

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Hello,

The question in its simplest form: I have a game object. How do I check if what it's type is? If it's a prefab called "Combat Unit", how do I check this? I've tried other.getType().equals("Combat Unit") but this doesn't work.

Thanks for your help!

Read on if you'd like some context!

About the game: 2D / side view. Units march across the screen, and stop to fight any enemy units or structures they encounter. Units and buildings have a rigidbody.

The problem: I'd like to implement different behaviour depending on whether the gameobject the unit encounters is an enemy unit( created from a prefab called "Combat Unit") or a building (gameobject that is automatically present in scene). Particularly, I need units to collide, and units to halt a distance away from buildings.

What I've tried so far: I've added a child gameobject with a box collider to the unit to determine if it is close to another object with a rigidbody. Iget the scripts attached to the collision game objects. Since the scripts are different, i can check whether each is null to determine the type of the unit in the collision. This works, but I don't think it's good practice, and could possibly cause problems down the line as the code gets more complex.

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by Eric5h5 · Dec 16, 2012 at 07:04 PM

Since a GameObject is by definition a GameObject, the type can't be anything other than GameObject. Use tags and CompareTag.

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fafase · Dec 16, 2012 at 07:06 PM 0

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From the look of the question,by type I think he means name.

 If it's a prefab called "Combat Unit"

Eric5h5 · Dec 16, 2012 at 07:16 PM 0

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Yeah, he's wanting a "type" for different prefabs, so I explained why GetType wouldn't work for this, since that's not actually the kind of type that applies here. The name would technically work and is a valid answer, but I think tags are more appropriate here, since they are meant to apply to categories of objects, whereas the name is more for individual objects. Also you have the issue where instantiating a prefab will cause it to have "(Clone)" added to the name by default, which can confuse things, so I think tags are cleaner for this particular usage. (Also you get to use CompareTag, which is a little more efficient than string comparisons.)

fafase · Dec 16, 2012 at 07:18 PM 0

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Yep I was about to think of the clone thing. Tag would be the best alternative.

DMCH · Dec 16, 2012 at 10:33 PM 0

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Thanks for the help all!

yoyo · Dec 17, 2012 at 04:48 AM 1

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You could also use gameObject.GetComponent() -- assu$$anonymous$$g there is a component script of type CombatUnit that it makes sense to check for. (Tags are good too, sometimes testing for a component makes sense.)

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Answer 2

Answer by Jeff_B · May 31, 2015 at 11:43 AM

"Since a GameObject is by definition a GameObject, the type can't be anything other than GameObject."

Oddly, that is actually helpful and gets a +1 from me -- I needed the repetition to help with an issue of "what type of object am I dealing with"... well, now it's obvious: it's a GameObject, of course! (It's turtles all the way down...)

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Answer 3

Answer by Raistlin2015 · Mar 30, 2017 at 04:04 PM

I know I am WAAAAY late to answer DMCH but for those who have this question in the future. If for instance you want to detect the Type of an object that another object has interacted with you could do something like the following.

     private void OnCollisionEnter(Collision col)
     {
         if (col.gameObject.GetComponent<Character>())
         {
             Debug.Log("Character Hit");
         }
     }

This has worked for me. I'm not sure how this affects performance but I like this over using tags so that an object can be checked for more than one interaction. Only one tag can be put on a gameObject. For example if I want to check if the Character is an NPC in one instance and in another I want to check for all objects that inherit from Character, well then a tag wouldn't work.

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unity_26EBDAE273C6BC4B3EF1 · May 31 at 07:06 PM 0

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personally I couldn't make it work with this answer, but with a similar idea using tags (so you should add a tag "player" to your player obviously)

if(col.gameObject.CompareTag("Player")))

How to get the type of a Gameobject

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