Identifier (Data Type)

A namespaced string that names a game object — an item, block, power, tag and so on.

An identifier (also called a resource location) is a String that names something in the game — an item, block, entity type, status effect, power, tag, or a file in a data/resource pack. It’s the single most common value type in Apoli: every type field is an identifier, and so are power, attribute, effect, sound, and many more.

Format

An identifier is written as namespace:path.

  • The namespace groups ids by who owns them — minecraft for vanilla, apoli for this engine, my_pack for your own content.
  • The path names the specific thing within that namespace.

If you write only a path with no colon, the namespace defaults to minecraft. So stone and minecraft:stone are the same.

"apoli:attribute"
"minecraft:diamond_sword"
"my_pack:mana"

Both the namespace and the path may contain only:

  • lowercase letters a–z
  • digits 0–9
  • underscore _, hyphen -, and dot .

The path may additionally contain / to indicate folders (e.g. apoli:textures/rope/rope.png). The namespace may not. There is exactly one colon, separating namespace and path.

Uppercase letters, spaces, and other symbols are not allowed and will cause the file to fail loading.

Where paths point

For ids that refer to a pack file, the path maps to a folder under that namespace. For example, a power id my_pack:swim is the file data/my_pack/powers/swim.json.