What is the best way to structure this class

[aubergine]

Probably a very simple question but i lost it at this point.

I have a class like follows:

public class Person {
public string name;
public List<Person> children = new List<Person>();
}

when i instance this class, it creates 1 person and few children then few more children for the previous children then..etc.

I dont want that, i want children list to be instanced once. So do i have to seperate children list or is there any other way?

[Cameron.]

public static List<Person> children = new List<Person>();

Static means the field belongs to the Class, not every instance of that class.

You can then access Person.children[...] from anywhere in any other script or just children[...] from within an instance of a Person class and they will all point to a single List.

[aubergine]

I meant i want a children list for every person but i dont want a children list for every persons children.
If i make it a static then wouldnt it mean theres 1 child list at all?

Anyways i made a childperson class to wrap things up. and it does the job.

[Antitheory]

I meant i want a children list for every person but i dont want a children list for every persons children.
If i make it a static then wouldnt it mean theres 1 child list at all?

Anyways i made a childperson class to wrap things up. and it does the job.

I would make a class Person that contains everything common to your Persons. Then I would make classes "Parent" and "Child" derived from Person.

[Cameron.]

Arr I see.

Technically, this shouldn't be an issue as long as your constructor/awake/start code does not create more person instances.

Generally with this kind of a structure you build/populate it from an external class/script so you don't have people creating other people all willy nilly (like the 70s).

Having empty List<Person>'s won't really cause any issues. The other options is to create a "soft collection" where you have public pointers to other Persons:

public Person parent = null;
public Person firstChild = null;
public Person nextChild = null;

As long as your code reinforces these references then all should be fine. public properties with custom get/set code works wonders here, you can also implement array access [...] on top of all this, but that's kinda overkill IMO, may as well just use a list.