What Godot Types to Use

If you've heard that a good way to speed up your Godot project is to make sure there are types on all your variables, that is correct. What if you don't know the types to use? When I tried to do the same I had 900+ references I needed to update. Here are some tricky ones I found in case it helps save you some time.

All examples in this post are as of godot 4.3

Func without a return? Use void as the return type

func my_func(a: int, b: int) -> void:
    a + b = c
    print(c)
    # nothing is returned, thus void

Func that returns? Use return variable's type:

In this example, the type is int, but it can be String, float, bool, Object, Node, Camera2D, etc.

func my_func(a: int, b: int) -> int:
    var c: int = 0
    a + b = c
    return c # this will return an int, so we use that return type

Multiple possible types? Use Variant

If you don't know what type it will be, or it may be multiple types:

func process_data(data: Variant) -> void:
    match typeof(data):
        TYPE_INT:
            print("Processing integer: ", data)
        TYPE_STRING:
            print("Processing string: ", data)
        TYPE_ARRAY:
            print("Processing array with ", data.size(), " elements")
        _:
            print("Unsupported data type")

Much like using a type: Any in other programming languages.

Load or Preload a Scene, use PackedScene

var scene: PackedScene = preload("res://game/Player.tscn")

Load or Preload a Script, use GDScript

var Utils: GDScript = preload("res://game/utils/utils.gd")

Reference a func as a callback or filter? Use type Callable:

func _init(_callback: Callable) -> void:

Reference an enum from another script? Use Dictionary:

# in Global.gd:
enum directions {N,S,E,W,NW,SW,NE,SE}

# in another script:
var directions: Dictionary = Global.directions

# Hint: the values in an enum are of type int