PluginPlayer doesn't issue changes for current player

[MathieuLoutre]

I have this piece of code:

        onPhaseEnd: (G, ctx) => {
          Object.values(G.players).forEach((player) => {
            G.decks.small = [...G.decks.small, ...player.tempHand]
            player.tempHand = []
          })

          G.decks.small = ctx.random.Shuffle(G.decks.small)

          ctx.events.endTurn()
        },

Inside the next phase onPhaseBegin, I'm checking is tempHand is empty but it turns out that for the current player at the time it was reset, it's not.

Object.values(G.players).forEach((player) => console.log(player.tempHand.length))

This logs: 0 0 2 instead of 0 0 0 as expected. Inside onPhaseEnd, the current player (available on G.player) is still the last player (see https://github.com/nicolodavis/boardgame.io/issues/367#issuecomment-464843807) and accessing it through the players object doesn't seem to affect it.

However, changing the value in G.player directly (G.player.tempHand = []) works. It would be great if the players object could reflect the changes on the current player too.

Edit: This is actually the same everywhere I'm iterating over the players object to make changes to every player.

[nicolodavis]

The way PluginPlayer works right now, it just copies over G.players[currentPlayer] to G.player before the turn, and copies G.player back to G.players[currentPlayer] at the end of the turn. It's a weak attempt at trying to create an alias (which explains the problem that you're running into).

Open to other suggestions on how we can make this better.

[MathieuLoutre]

My solution so far is to remove the player reference and just use const player = G.players[ctx.currentPlayer] at the start of each action. It feels a bit like boilerplate but it’s not that bad. Creating some sort of getter that would preserve the reference might not even help that much? Maybe wrapping the move with a 3rd argument (G, ctx, player) when the plugin is active?

On 4 Mar 2019, at 13:38, Nicolo John Davis notifications@github.com wrote:

The way PluginPlayer works right now, it just copies over G.players[currentPlayer] to G.player before the turn, and copies G.player back to G.players[currentPlayer] at the end of the turn. It's a weak attempt at trying to create an alias (which explains the problem that you're running into).

Open to other suggestions on how we can make this better.

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[nicolodavis]

I think a getter / setter combination might work. We can convert player and opponent to getters / setters so that they retrieve the underlying data on demand.

[MathieuLoutre]

The new getter/setter approach feels right. I forgot you could access directly on the object which essentially just create the shortcut ref that we need in this case. Your addition to the test case looks like you've got it under control!

[nicolodavis]

This is now obsolete after PluginPlayer has changed to use the new Plugin API.