# Objective
- Handle dangling entity references inside scenes
- Handle references to entities with generation > 0 inside scenes
- Fix a latent bug in `Parent`'s `MapEntities` implementation, which
would, if the parent was outside the scene, cause the scene to be loaded
into the new world with a parent reference potentially pointing to some
random entity in that new world.
- Fixes#4793 and addresses #7235
## Solution
- DynamicScenes now identify entities with a `Entity` instead of a u32,
therefore including generation
- `World` exposes a new `reserve_generations` function that despawns an
entity and advances its generation by some extra amount.
- `MapEntities` implementations have a new `get_or_reserve` function
available that will always return an `Entity`, establishing a new
mapping to a dead entity when the entity they are called with is not in
the `EntityMap`. Subsequent calls with that same `Entity` will return
the same newly created dead entity reference, preserving equality
semantics.
- As a result, after loading a scene containing references to dead
entities (or entities otherwise outside the scene), those references
will all point to different generations on a single entity id in the new
world.
---
## Changelog
### Changed
- In serialized scenes, entities are now identified by a u64 instead of
a u32.
- In serialized scenes, components with entity references now have those
references serialize as u64s instead of structs.
### Fixed
- Scenes containing components with entity references will now
deserialize and add to a world reliably.
## Migration Guide
- `MapEntities` implementations must change from a `&EntityMap`
parameter to a `&mut EntityMapper` parameter and can no longer return a
`Result`. Finally, they should switch from calling `EntityMap::get` to
calling `EntityMapper::get_or_reserve`.
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Co-authored-by: Nicola Papale <nicopap@users.noreply.github.com>
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