Assign prefab programmatically

I have read the "similar questions" that popped up below after I wrote my title, but while the question seemed straightforward, none of the posters seemed particularly satisfied with the answers, and I must admit I found them confusing too, so I will try posting myself and see if that gives me anything more straightforward.

Ok, currently I have declaration lines that go like:
public GameObject ActorPrefab;
private static GameObject staticActorPrefab;
in Awake() I have
staticActorPrefab = ActorPrefab;

I drag my prefab onto the ActorPrefab slot in the Editor. But I use it from the static reference all through my game.

My question is, what is the right/best/simplest way to simply assign the prefab directly to the static variable for it (using c# code presumably) thereby losing the "public GameObject ActorPrefab;" line?

 

The simplest way would be to use Resources.Load.

The right way would probably involve not using static at all.

 

Thanks. Yeah I know there is some controversy about static classes and fields - spent part of the weekend reading discussions about singleton.v.static. This is indeed code on a game controller type of class (not my main gamecontrol object which *is* an instance, but a helper management class. I just get tired of typing "Somecontroller.Instance.Whatever" when I could just type "Somecontroller.Whatever" lol.

 

Nothing says you can't use a pure static method and hide the singleton implementation.

 

Well I couldn't use a static method and reference the public editor variable from it, that's why I used the workaround of casting it to a static variable at runtime. But it irritates me to have two references to the same object in the same instance!

 

There's not really a magical tidy way around this and the way you're handling it is (imo) acceptable. You can null the exposed variable after assigning the static one if you're that worried about the pointer sticking around.

Is there a performance concern here or is it just an exercise to clean up?

 

Lol you're right, I am a cleanup freak No it wasn't causing a problem