CopyObject(object, location, object, string)

Duplicates the object specified.

object CopyObject(
    object oSource,
    location locLocation,
    object oOwner = OBJECT_INVALID,
    string sNewTag = ""
);

Warning: This function has a known bug and may not work as expected in some situations. See Known Bugs for details.

This article is in need of examples. You can help the NWN Lexicon by showing how to use this code effectively.

Parameters

oSource

Object to be copied.

locLocation

Destination location for the copied object (required).

oOwner

Item owner (for use when copying items into inventory) (Default: OBJECT_INVALID)

sNewTag

New tag for the copied object. (Default: "")

Description

Duplicates the object specified. If oOwner does not equal OBJECT_INVALID and an item is being copied, the item will automatically be placed in oOwner's inventory. If the object to be copied is a creature, it will be placed at locLocation. If sNewTag is specified, then that tag will be assigned to the copied object.

If an item is created and oOwner is specified, locLocation must be the location of the owner to appear within that owner's inventory (i.e., GetLocation(oOwner)).

Remarks

CopyObject only works with items and creatures.

Variables on the object are only copied to the new object for items, but not if copying a creature.

It is worth noticing that CopyObject is much faster than CreateObject. This means that if you need multiple instances of something, it is much faster creating the first using CreateObject, and the following instances using CopyObject on that object.

When iterating through a container, keep in mind that DestroyObject() doesn't occur until the script exits.

If copying a creature object that is flagged as plot, any present negative effects (even from item properties) will not be transferred to the copy (even if they are present on the original). This means that these negative effects will not apply even when the plot flag is removed on the copy. To overcome this, simple remove the plot flag before copying.

Known Bugs

If you are iterating through a dead PC's inventory and use CopyObject() on a container that has items within it, and copying to another placeable (a Corpse placeable for example) the items are duplicated. This occurs because the items belong both to the parent container and again to the child container. It may be possible to get around this unexpected behavior by marking each item already processed using SetLocalInt(), then seeing if an int value set exists on the item; if so do not copy the item (of course items in a copied object's inventory will have to be iterated through manually).

It appears that if you try to make a copy at a non-existent location (like getting the location of a waypoint whose tag you misspelled...), it will crash the game.

There are problems with the new tag as well. Calling GetTag() with the copied object as a parameter works, but calling GetObjectByTag() won't return the copy, or at least it won't all the time. Calling GetTag(GetObjectByTag("")) will also return the tag of the most recently copied object.

Version

1.61

See Also

functions:

CreateObject

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 author: Charles Feduke, editor: Lilac Soul, additional contributor(s): S. Perreault, Nanodeath, Alex Meduna, Angelo Cossa, Harold Myles