How to use GetChildren() in c++?

[LingZA]

In python, I can op.GetChildren() easily.
But in c++, GetChildren() is under the
MAXON_METHOD.
Because I'm the new to c++, I can not understand the such complex grammar and the usage of this function in c++.
.
Please tell me how to get children of an object by using this function in c++.

[ferdinand]

Hey @LingZA,

GelistNode.GetChildren is a convenience function of the Python API which does not exist in the C++ API. You are looking there at HierarchyObjectInterface::GetChildren which is an entirely different entity and method.

To learn the basics about (classic API) node iteration in C++, I would recommend our GeListNode Manual. I also provided below a small code snippet explaining GeListNode child-iteration in C++.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

Code:

// The object over whose children we want to loop.
BaseObject* const parent;

// Iterate over all children with a for-loop.
for (BaseObject* child = parent->GetDown(); child; child = child->GetNext())
{
  ApplicationOutput("Child: @", child->GetName());
}

// The C++ for-loop syntax can be a bit overwhelming for beginners. We can use also a while loop,
// which is less elegant (while loops are scary), but it might be more obvious for people coming
// from Python what is going on here: We loop over all children of a node until child.GetNext() is
// the nullptr, i.e., more or less what is `None` in Python.
BaseObject* child = parent->GetDown();
while (child)
{
  ApplicationOutput("Child: @", child->GetName());
  child = child->GetNext(); 
}

[LingZA]

@ferdinand
That is great! Thanks!