Serialized Dictionary Saving

[Thoranar]

I'm attempting to save/load an Character Stats system that primarily is driven by a serialized dictionary, meaning a class that derives from Dictionary and ISerializationCallbackReceiver. The dictionary is structured like this:

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[Serializable]
public class StatDictionary : SerializableDictionary<BaseStat, StatRuntimeData> { }

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[Serializable]
public class SerializableDictionary<TKey, TValue> : Dictionary<TKey, TValue>, ISerializationCallbackReceiver
{
...
}

BaseStat is reference to a scriptable object assigned at design time and StatRuntimeData is a non abstract class generated at runtime, with a parameter constructor:

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[Serializable]
public class StatRuntimeData
{
...
	public StatRuntimeData(BaseStat stat, float startingValue, CharacterData charData = null, int startingLevel = 0)
	{
          ...
        }
}
{

the way i'm currently doing the save/load just as a quick test is by these method calls:

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public void SaveStats()
	{

		ES3.Save<StatDictionary>(id, stats);
	}

public void LoadStats()
	{
		if (ES3.KeyExists(id))
		{
			Debug.Log("save exists");
			ES3.LoadInto<StatDictionary>(id, this.stats);
		}
	}

Saving creates a file and I see mention of the StatDictionary, but when I load the dictionary is cleared out (no keys/values).

I created a type for the StatDictionary, though no fields or properties were listed. Do I also need to create types for BaseStat and StatRuntimeData? Is there an example of creating a type that does not have a parameterless constructor (the documentation appeared to be lite in this area).

[Joel]

Hi there,

Would you be able to show me the fields of your serialisable dictionary? If these aren't appearing in the type manager then they won't be serialisable.

I suspect that they're private, so they don't technically belong to the class which inherits it, so won't be serialised even if they are marked as serialisable.

All the best,
Joel

[Thoranar]

I thought that too and so changed them to Protected fields, but some fields would show up and others would not.

I ended up just taking a step back and seeing what within the dictionary really needed saving. Since the keys are defined at design time and never change at runtime, and since there are several setup/configuration steps for each value that also needs to happen once at runtime (event listeners), I ended up just saving the the current value, current experience, and current level (ints/floats) and feeding those values back into the dictionary on load.

[Thoranar]

Actually bringing this back up since there are a several areas I need to save that I'm using serialized dictionaries.

I'm now working on saving equipment and are having similar issues except now I'm getting various InvalidCastException: Specified cast is not valid errors.

Here is what I'm trying to do:

ItemDictionary class inherits from the same serializeabledictionary class. Here are the fields on that one. By switching to protected instead of private, I do see the fields in the type window and I was able to create a new type for the ItemDictionary

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[Serializable]
public class SerializableDictionary<TKey, TValue> : Dictionary<TKey, TValue>, ISerializationCallbackReceiver
{
	[SerializeField]
	protected List<TKey> keys = new List<TKey>();

	[SerializeField]
	protected List<TValue> values = new List<TValue>();
...
}

Saving produces no errors, but the key and value lists are empty in the save file

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	public void SaveData(string FilePath)
	{
		
		ES3.Save<ItemDictionary>("equipmentList", items, FilePath);
		
	}

Few extra steps in loading, mainly just specific to my game so can be ignored:

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	public void LoadData(string FilePath)
	{

		if (ES3.KeyExists("equipmentList", FilePath))
		{
			UnEquipAll();

			ItemDictionary savedItems = ES3.Load<ItemDictionary>("equipmentList", FilePath);

			foreach (var item in savedItems.Values)
			{
				if (savedItems != null)
					this.EquipItem(item as EquipableItem);
			}
}

And then the error:

EasySaveError.JPG (102.89 KiB) Viewed 2118 times

The ItemDictionary is a dictionary of custom classes. The key is a UISlot class(head, shoulder, legs, etc.) and the value is a scriptableobject item created at design time. Here are the fields related to that object (note the equipment types are all enums:

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[CreateAssetMenu(menuName = "Items/Equippable Item")]
public class EquipableItem : Item
{
	[System.Serializable]
	public struct EquipmentModifier
	{
		public BaseStat stat;
		public float value;
		public StatModType type;
	}
	[Space]
	public EquipmentTier Tier;
	public EquipmentSubType EquipType;
	public EquipmentType EquipmentType;
	public AudioClip equipSFX;
	[Space]
	public EquipmentModifier[] modifiers;
...
}

[Thoranar]

I've tried other methods including just saving the values separately as a list, but still run into castexception errors. I've tried creating types for all the various classes with no luck.

[Joel]

Hi there,

Please could you create a basic project and instructions to replicate this and PM this to me? It won't be possible for me to replicate your project.

All the best,
Joel