[Suggestion] Add metadata specifier to UPROPERTY/UCLASS/USTRUCT etc.

[kadium91]

Hello, would it be possible to add metadata specifiers to dumped properties/classes/structs ? (I'm talking about the meta stuff like meta(ClampMin=..., ClampMax=...), you can find a sample on FColor.), also maybe add Category property specifier (if available, this might be exposed only to editor builds idk)

You have a sample of how to get metadata in "UField::GetMetaData" in Engine/Source/Runtime/CoreUObject/Private/UObject/Class.cpp

[UE4SS]

Unfortunately the MetaData related functions and variables only exist in the UE editor, so the only way to do this would be to glean which specifiers are appropriate from the context of the property at runtime which can be difficult and inaccurate.
I appreciate letting us know where to look though, it's very helpful.

[kadium91]

Unfortunately the MetaData related functions and variables only exist in the UE editor, so the only way to do this would be to glean which specifiers are appropriate from the context of the property at runtime which can be difficult and inaccurate. I appreciate letting us know where to look though, it's very helpful.

You're right, didn't saw that was marked EDITORONLY. There might be a way tho as I know some of metadata are used at runtime in production build.

[kadium91]

Unfortunately the MetaData related functions and variables only exist in the UE editor, so the only way to do this would be to glean which specifiers are appropriate from the context of the property at runtime which can be difficult and inaccurate. I appreciate letting us know where to look though, it's very helpful.

After talking with a former epic employee here is what he told me about accessing metadata in shipping builds

Not without engine changes. Some metadata makes it into property flags but most doesn’t
Package level metadata can be promoted to asset registry tags without modifying the engine though

The specific metadata specifier I was interested to was AssetBundles btw. I think we could still get it apart from metadata since they are used at runtime for shipping builds. I'll look at it tmr.

[kadium91]

Hello there, I'm coming with some news. Retrieving the whole metadata specifiers may be possible on engine version below 4.19 (so 4.18). GetMetaData in UField is retrieving the metadata from UPackage's MetaData property, this property is marked as EDITOR_ONLY on version above 4.18 but isn't in 4.18, so the deal may be to recreate the GetMetaData function from UField (which is still marked as EDITOR_ONLY on 4.18) in order to get the metadata from UPackage->MetaData.

For comparisons here is a few links :

4.18

• UPackage
• UField

4.19 (same as current engine versions)

• UPackage
• UField

So yes it is possible, I know it's not really a BIG deal since it's for engine version below 4.18, but again it may be useful in my case (and a few peoples ig). I could run a old fortnite version on < 4.18 to know their metadata etc.

[narknon]

It says it's NULL in the game.