Table of Contents

Code Generation in Ceres

Flow uses several code generation layers to enhance runtime performance and save your time.

Source Generator

In Unity, most of time we use component to provide modular functions which often results in multiple modules being unable to share a parent class.

Therefore, in Unity's Gameplay development, interfaces are more flexible than abstract classes.

For this reason, in Flow we use IFlowGraphContainer to let Unity Object has visual scripting ability.

To reduce duplication of code, Ceres.SourceGenerator will analyze any partial class annotated with GenerateFlowAttribute. And their implementation will be done by generator.

For more details, see Code Generation in Flow.

Generated C# Runtime

Generated C# Runtime is a Flow graph runtime mode. It generates graph execution into C# program files, instead of generating partial C# container code.

Use it for hot Flow graphs when you want generated event dispatch, typed data slots, and cached invokers while keeping the normal graph runtime as the disabled or Editor fallback path.

For more details, see Code Generation in Flow.

ILPP

Ceres graph use ILPP to emit IL for initialization logic of CeresNode to enhance runtime performance.

In Flow we use ILPP to emit IL for methods annotated with ImplementableEventAttribute that let you execute graph event in C#.

For more details, see Code Generation in Flow.

Build Source Generator

Following document are from com.unity.netcode

Source generator DLLs need to be compiled manually outside of the Unity compilation pipeline using the .NET SDK 6.0 or higher: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/6.0 That can be done with dotnet from within the Packages\Ceres\Runtime\SourceGenerators\Source~ directory via command prompt:

dotnet publish -c Release

Additionally, they can be built/debugged with the Ceres.SourceGenerator.sln solution in the same folder. In order to debug source generators you can replace Release with Debug when running the publish command.

Next Steps

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