Svelto.ECS Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file. Changes are listed in random order of importance.

[3.4.2] - 03-2023

removed static caches used in performance critical paths as they were causing unexpected performance issues (the fetching of static data is slower than i imagined)
add Native prefix in front of the native memory utilities method names
largely improved the console logger system
minor improvements to the platform profiler structs
improvements to the ThreadSafeObjectPool class (some refactoring too)
added several datastructures previously belonging to Svelto.ECS
all the FastClear methods are gone. The standard clear method now is aware of the type used and will clear it in the fastest way possible
MemClear is added in case memory needs to be cleared explicitly
added new SveltoStream, Unmanaged and Managed stream classes, their use case will be documented one day
renamed the Svelto.Common.DataStructures namespace to Svelto.DataStructures
added FixedTypedArray* methods. Fixed size arrays embedded in structs are now possible
FasterList extension to convert to Span and ByteSpan
Fix reported bugs
Minor Svelto Dictionary improvements
Added ValueContainer, a simple int, Tvalue dictionary based on sparse set. It has very specific use cases at the moment. Mainly to be used for the new ECS OOP Abstraction resoruce manager
Added IReactOnSubmissionStarted interface

update to DOTS 1.0 (but still compatible with 0.51, although slower)
Deprecated the use of EntityCommandBuffer since was very slow
added faster batched DOTS operations, new DOTS creation patterns introduced (old one still compatible as long as EntityCommandBuffer was not used)
ISveltoOnDOTSSubmission interface exists only to allow the user to submit entities On DOTS explicitly, use this instead of
SveltoOnDOTSHandleCreationEngine is no more, you want to use ISveltoOnDOTSStructuralEngine and its DOTSOperations instead wherever EntityManager was used before
ISveltoOnDOTSStructuralEngine is no more, you want to use ISveltoOnDOTSStructuralEngine and its DOTSOperations instead
in all the case above, if you were relying on Update you probably want to use OnPostSubmission instead
DOTSOperations new AddJobToComplete method will allow to register jobs from inside ISveltoOnDOTSStructuralEngines that will be completed at the end of the submission

Internal refactoring to support future features. Currently it may translate to a small performance boost
IEntityComponent and IEntityViewComponent now implements _IInternalEntityComponent. This shouldn't affect existing code
Improve thread-safety of entity building
Fixed serious bug that affected the integrity of the EntityIDs values during RemoveEX callbacks
The point above may result in a performance boost in the Filters updates during submission
Code is again 2019 compatible (this may have been broken for a while)
Fix a crash wit the EntityCollection deconstruction while trying to deconstruct an empty collection
Breaking: EntityFilterCollection GetGroupFilter will throw an exception if the filter doesn't exist. Use GetOrCreateGroupFilter in case.
Breaking: LocatorMap has been renamed to EntityReferenceMap
Breaking: GetEntityLocatorMap has been renamed to GetEntityReferenceMap

INeedEGID and INeedEntityReference interfaces are not deprecated, but still available for backwards compatibility through the define SLOW_SVELTO_SUBMISSION
There are some minor breaking changes, you may need to rename a bunch of methods calls
Drastically improved Submission phase performance
All the IReactOn interfaces are now replaced by much faster IReacOn*Ex interfaces. Use those instead.
QueryEntities methods now optionally return also an array of Entity IDs that you can reference like a component (this supersedes INeedEGID)
Completely reworked and way more powerful filter API. The old one has been renamed to Legacy and left for backward compatibility
NativeEGIDMultiMapper doesn't need to be created every submission anymore. It can be created permanently and disposed when not used anymore (some caveats with it)
Improved Serialization system
Improved SveltoOnDots system
Tons of other improvements and bug fixes

refactor and improved NativeBag and UnsafeBlob. This fix a previously known crash with Unity IL2CPP

Improved checks on Svelto rules for the declaration of components and view components. This set of rules is not final yet (ideally one day they should be moved to static analyzers)
Introduce the concept of Entity Reference. It's a very light weight identifier to keep track of entities EGID that can change dynamically (EGIDs change when groups are swapped), Entity References never change. The underlying code will be optimised even further in future.
Introduced the concept of Disabled Group. Once a group is marked as disabled, queries will always ignore it.
Merged DispatchOnSet and DispatchOnChange and renamed to ReactiveValue. This class will be superseded by better patterns in future.
Added FindGroups with 4 components
Improved QueryGroups interface
Improved DynamicEntityDescriptor interface
Improved ExtendibleEntityDescriptor interface
Improved Native memory support
Improved Svelto and Unity DOTS integration
Improved and fixed Serialization code
Ensure that the creation of static groups is deterministic (GroupHashMap)

rearrange folders structures for clarity
added DoubleEntitiesEnumerator, as seen in MiniExample 4, to allow a double iteration of the same group skipping already checked tuples
reengineered the behaviour of WaitForSubmissionEnumerator
removed redudant SimpleEntitySubmissionSchedulerInterface interface
renamed BuildGroup in to ExclusiveBuildGroup
renamed EntityComponentInitializer to EntityInitializer
Entity Submission now can optionally be time sliced (based on number of entities to submit per slice)
working on the Unity extension Submission Engine, still WIP
added the possibility to hold a reference in a EntityViewComponent. This reference cannot be accesses as an object, but can be converted to the original object in OOP abstract layers
renamed NativeEntityComponentInitializer to NativeEntityInitializer