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Unity Engine

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Unity Engine

CopySerialized(Object, Object)

Copies all serialized properties of a Unity Object from one object to another.
Read time 2 minutesLast updated 5 days ago

Definition

  • Type: Method
  • Namespace: UnityEditor
  • Assembly: UnityEditor.CoreModule
public static void CopySerialized(Object source, Object dest)

Parameters

source

Object
The object to copy the properties from.

dest

Object
The object to copy the properties to.

Remarks

This method copies all serialized properties from the 
source
object to the 
dest
object, overwriting values that are currently in the properties of 
dest
. The fields that are included follow the script-serialization-rules.
This method is mostly useful when working with objects in assets. It is similar to Object.Instantiate in that it also copies the serialized properties of an object, but it overwrites an existing object, unlike 
Instantiate
which always creates a new object.
Note that Object.hideFlags are not copied.
If the object being copied derives from MonoBehaviour or ScriptableObject, then 
dest
must either be the same type as 
source
, or a base class of it. Otherwise, the types of 
dest
and 
source
must be equal.
Because the Unity serializer is used to copy the values, if the ISerializationCallbackReceiver.OnBeforeSerialize method is implemented then it's invoked on the 
source
object before copying. If the ISerializationCallbackReceiver.OnAfterDeserialize method is implemented, it's invoked on the 
dest
object after copying.
The following example shows how this method could be used to reset the properties of an object to match a 'reference' object, instead of manually resetting the properties to hardcoded values.

Examples

using System.Collections.Generic;using UnityEditor;using UnityEngine;[CreateAssetMenu]public class CopySerializedExample : ScriptableObject{    // Declare some serialized fields    public int intValue;    public string stringValue;    public List<bool> listOfBools;    #if UNITY_EDITOR    [ContextMenu("Reset to reference")]    public void ResetToReference()    {        // CopySerialized will overwrite the object name as well; we don't want that        // so save it to a temporary variable so we can restore it afterwards        var originalName = this.name;        var reference = AssetDatabase.LoadAssetAtPath<CopySerializedExample>("Assets/ReferenceAsset.asset");        EditorUtility.CopySerialized(reference, this);        // Restore the original name        this.name = originalName;    }    #endif}