Book Image

Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 2019 - Fourth Edition

By : Harrison Ferrone
Book Image

Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 2019 - Fourth Edition

By: Harrison Ferrone

Overview of this book

Learning to program in today’s technical landscape can be a daunting task, especially when faced with the sheer number of languages you have to choose from. Luckily, Learning C# with Unity 2019 removes the guesswork and starts you off on the path to becoming a confident, and competent, programmer using game development with Unity. You’ll start off small by learning the building blocks of programming, from variables, methods, and conditional statements to classes and object-oriented systems. After you have the basics under your belt you’ll explore the Unity interface, creating C# scripts, and translating your newfound knowledge into simple game mechanics. Throughout this journey, you’ll get hands-on experience with programming best practices and macro-level topics such as manager classes and flexible application architecture. By the end of the book, you’ll be familiar with intermediate C# topics like generics, delegates, and events, setting you up to take on projects of your own.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Programming Foundations and C#
7
Section 2: Scripting Game Mechanics in Unity
12
Section 3: Leveling Up Your C# Code

Delegating actions

There will be times when you need to pass off, or delegate, the actual execution of a method. In C#, this can be accomplished through delegate types, which store references to methods and can be treated like any other variable. The only caveat is that the delegate itself and any assigned method need to have the same signature—just like integer variables can only hold whole numbers and strings can only hold text.

Basic syntax

Creating a delegate is a mix between writing a function and declaring a variable:

public delegate returnType DelegateName(int param1, string param2);

You start with an access modifier followed the keyword delegate, which identifies it to the compiler as a delegate type. The delegate can have a return type and name like a regular function, as well as parameters if needed. However, this syntax only declares the delegate type itself; in order to use it you need to create an instance like we do with classes...