How to use ConfigNode?

[Benjamin Kerman]

Hello everyone!

I have not beed able to find a good tutorial or example for implementing ConfigNodes into my code for Part modules. If someone could explain how to use them and how they are implemented, preferably with examples, that would be great! 

Thanks!

[Rodhern]

A ConfigNode is more less a section as you see them in the save games (.sfs). Example:

ROSTER
{
  KERBAL
  {
    name = Jebediah Kerman
    gender = Male
    type = Crew
    trait = Pilot
    brave = 0.5
    dumb = 0.5
    ...
    CAREER_LOG
    {

You can think of ROSTER as a config node. It has a title (ROSTER) and children in the form of values (none in this case) and nodes. The child nodes in this case are config nodes titled KERBAL.

You can think of KERBAL as a config node. It has a title (KERBAL) and children in the form of values (name, gender, type, trait, ...) and nodes (in this case we can see one called CAREER_LOG).

One of the cool thing about part module config nodes is that Module Manager can find and manipulate the nodes.

 

Edit:

 Here I wanted to give a simple explanation, and then I run into trouble myself (https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/166271-part-confignode-persistence-of-upgradesapplied/).

 

Edited October 8, 2017 by Rodhern
Oops, maybe I better fix my own code first :-)

[Benjamin Kerman]

Thanks @Rodhern for the response. Would you know anything about navigating through the tree in a plugin using the ConfigNode class in the KSP API? I need to figure out how the values are stored whith an instance of config node for manipulation. 

Thanks!

[Rodhern]

If you know which values and child nodes you are looking for you can do it a bit easier. I, on the other hand, have a fondness for the idiot proof method.

You can run foreach on ConfigNode.values which will give you all the values of the node as key-value-pairs of type ConfigNode.Value (edit: which in turn has ConfigNode.Value.name and ConfigNode.Value.value).

You can run foreach on ConfigNode.nodes which will give you all the direct child nodes (as ConfigNodes).

Just run the foreach recursively and you will soon have traversed the tree.

Edited October 9, 2017 by Rodhern
added more detail