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Record Resolve

Record resolves are the main feature that Link Caches provide: looking up a record relative to some mods.

Some important concepts to consider when Resolving:

Scoping Type

Resolve Target

TryResolve

TryResolve is the typical call for looking up records pointed to by a FormKey. Similar to how Control-Clicking a FormID in xEdit will bring you to the record a FormID points to. It takes a LinkCache as a parameter to the call, which will inspect the content it is attached to (whether it's a load order or a single mod) and try to locate the record that matches:

  • The FormKey (FormID)
  • The type specified

If found, the record returned will be from the mod latest in the load order which is the "winning" override.

Subsequent Resolves

For Immutable caches, the results will be cached, and subsequent resolves will be almost instant

ILinkCache myLinkCache = ...;
IFormLinkGetter<INpcGetter> myLink = ...;

if (myLink.TryResolve(myLinkCache, out var npc))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Found the npc! {npc.EditorID}");
}

ILinkCache myLinkCache = ...;
IFormLinkGetter<INpcGetter> myLink = ...;

if (myLinkCache.TryResolve(myLink, out var record))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Found a record! {record.EditorID}");
}

ILinkCache myLinkCache = ...;
string myEditorID = ...;

if (myLinkCache.TryResolve(myEditorId, out var record))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Found a record! {record.EditorID}");
}

ILinkCache myLinkCache = ...;
myFormKey formKey = ...;

if (myLinkCache.TryResolve(myFormKey, out var record))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Found a record! {record.EditorID}");
}

TryResolveIdentifier

Sometimes you are not interested in getting the whole record. The TryResolveIdentifier option lets you provide a FormKey to look up the associated EditorID, and vice versa.

ILinkCache myLinkCache = ...;
    string myEditorID = ...;

if (myLinkCache.TryResolveIdentifier(myEditorId, out var associatedFormKey))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Found a record! {associatedFormKey}");
}

This is often useful to use with lightweight Link Caches, which only deal in identifiers.

Identifier Only Caches

Throwing Variants

All API described above has non-Try variants that will throw an exception if the resolve is unsuccessful. These can be useful if you know you want to short circuit and fail if a record is missing.