In Unrealscript, we had two versions of the ‘Find’ function for an array:
There are two versions of Find: standard find for matching entire element values, and a specialized version for matching a struct based on the value of a single property of the struct.
Find(Value): where Value is the value to search for. Returns the index for the first element found in the array which matches the value specified, or -1 if that value wasn’t found in the array. Value can be represented using any valid expression.
Find(PropertyName, Value): where PropertyName is the name of property in the struct to search against (must be of type ‘Name’), and Value is the value to search for. Returns the index for the first struct in the array that has a value matching the value specified for a property named PropertyName, or -1 if the value wasn’t found. Value can be any valid expression.
I used the latter a lot in Unrealscript, but currently I can’t find the equivalent in Blueprints (UE4.8), nor can I find a way to do it “generically” in a shared function.
It can be achieved by doing a for loop, breaking the struct etc, but I have to make a brand new version of it every time I do it on a different array of structs.
Is there already plans for a “STRUCT FIND” node, to go with the existing “FIND” node for arrays? This would be extremely useful. The node would return -1 if: the array isn’t of type struct; the the property name wasn’t found in the struct or; no matching value was found. Mockup:
