Extensible ECS data structure

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Hi,

Welcome to Elm Discourse.

How about something like this?

type alias Scene data =
    { entities : List Int
    , components : List (Component data)
    , systems : List (Scene -> Scene)
    }


type alias Component data =
    { id : Int
    , parent : Int
    , data : data
    }


type ComponentData
    = Name String
    | Player
    | Health { current : Float, max : Float }

When you define your Scene type on your Model you’d do the following:

type alias Model =
    { scene : Scene ComponentData 
    , ...
    }

Now you can apply functions to your list of components because the compiler knows what type the type variable data is.

Just a thought…

p.s. Did you make a typo in your Scene type because it’s recursive and so won’t compile.