Destroying all elements of a group with a parent

[hackenstein]

When I switch states (or levels) I destroy all elements of my layers to clean up the stage/world. This becomes problematic if I have nested groups. When a new group is created and another group is set as a parent, then _container of the new group will be added as a child to the parent group.

    destroyGroup: function destroyGroup(group, name)    {        var name = name  || 'undefined';        var length = group.length;        while(group.length > 0)        {            obj = group.getAt(0);            // console.log("Destroying: " + obj.type + " " + obj.name);                        /* Doesn't work!            if(obj.type == Phaser.GROUP)            {                console.warn("Found group in group!");                this.destroyGroup(obj, "sub-"+name);            }            */                        if(obj.destroy)                obj.destroy();            else if(obj.kill)            {                console.log(obj.type + " has no destroy function and will be killed instead");                group.remove(obj);                obj.kill();            }            else            {                console.error("Couldn't correctly remove " + obj.type +" object in " + name + " group!");                group.removeBetween(-1,1);            }                        // Safety            if(length == group.length)            {                console.error("Couldn't remove object in " + name + " group!");                break;            }            else                length = group.length;        }                group.destroy();    }

What I wish to do is destroy the elements of the child group as well, but because I have only it's _container I don't know how to do that. The _container doesn't even have a type. I found an issue about group.destroy not destroying the elements. I don't know if I'm using destroy wrong, but it would be really convenient if calling group.destroy(); would be all I had to do to remove the group with all it's children and grandchildren etc.

[Alvin]

Hi,

You can do

game.world.removeAll()

to remove everything displayed on the screen if it's what you are after.

[hackenstein]

Yeah, that does work. I just thought destroy would be better, because the references are set to null, so the garbage collector can clean everything up. Not sure if this really is the case though...

[rich]

I agree, destroy should iterate and nuke cleanly. Again please can you file an issue on github (if you didn't already).

[hackenstein]

I have clarified this in crazysam's issue linked above.

I'm always a little hesitant to write an issue, because I'm seldom sure that this is not the expected behaviour and I'm doing something stupid

[omarojo]

This is not working in my game. With or without the shutdown or removeAll. The objects from the previous state are still on screen below everything new that I add.

this.state.start('NewState', true,false);  second parameter which is suppose to clearWorld just doesnt work. 

Code: 

https://github.com/omarojo/Phaser-Test6/blob/master/scripts/MainMenu.js

[eddieone]

For anyone finding this in the future, How's the weather on Mars? And to destroy all sprites in a group use group.removeAll(true)