How get_node works

system · October 30, 2022, 7:36am


	Attention	Topic was automatically imported from the old Question2Answer platform.
	Asked By	VLAHIN

Hello. I’m interested in how the “get_node” is arranged inside. What is she really doing? Is it necessary to understand how best to use it, at the beginning of the script, put it in a variable or use “get_node” every time you call the function?

system · October 30, 2022, 2:21pm


	Reply From:	jgodfrey

Looks like get_node() mostly just calls get_node_or_null() internally. The source code for that is here, so feel free to take a look:

github.com

godotengine/godot/blob/0fd48f02f550bb4c51797472958dfde8b267e91a/scene/main/node.cpp#L1380


      
          
          	for (int i = 0; i < cc; i++) {
          		if (cd[i]->data.name == p_name) {
          			return cd[i];
          		}
          	}
          
          	return nullptr;
          }
          
          Node *Node::get_node_or_null(const NodePath &p_path) const {
          	if (p_path.is_empty()) {
          		return nullptr;
          	}
          
          	ERR_FAIL_COND_V_MSG(!data.inside_tree && p_path.is_absolute(), nullptr, "Can't use get_node() with absolute paths from outside the active scene tree.");
          
          	Node *current = nullptr;
          	Node *root = nullptr;
          
          	if (!p_path.is_absolute()) {

Regarding the second part of your question… A call to get_node() definitely takes some cycles, so… If you’re going to be referencing the same node multiple times in a script, it’s better to acquire that reference once and cache it in a variable for future use.