SHIP:Sail:getChild

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getChild

Gets a child node object from within an enclosing parent node, by index.

Prototype

node = getChild(parentNode, index);

Parameters/Return Value

Parameter	Data Type	Description
parentNode	Node	The node to look in for children
index	Integer	The index of the child desired in the parent
Return	Node	nth node within the parentNode's children

Detailed Description

Nodes in SHIP may have 0 or more child nodes. For example, a group in the resources area may have N images within the group.

These children, if present, are implicitly numbered 0..N-1.

The getChild function returns the child at index within the parent.

The index is always taken "modulus the count of children within the parent", preventing inadvertent out-of-bounds accesses. For example, a reference to index 5 when the parent only has 4 children will return 5%4 => 1. Negative indices are handled also with a modulus. Therefore, as expected, index -1 returns the last child.

If the specified parent node has no children, the parent object itself is returned by the function.