Add Server PDC

[JVMJahn]

Is your feature request related to a problem?

The Persistent Data Container is a great part of the Paper API, and I often find myself wanting to save Data not to a specific World/Entity/... but rather the Server itself. The usual way to go about this would be using Plugin YAML configuration files, which get cluttered and take up quite a large amount of space when dealing with larger amounts of data.

Describe the solution you'd like.

Having a Persistent Data Container for the Server (or if feasible for the Plugin) would allow storing Data in a uniform way like the other PDC implementations.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

Plugin YAML configuration files, which can't use PersistentDataTypes, as an example of one limitation.

Other

No response

[mcmdev]

The problem I see with this is that the server itself doesn't store anything using NBT data. Implementing this would require adding some sort of server data file. You could fairly easily do this with a plugin using the serialization methods of the PersistentDataContainer.

[notTamion]

Could you give a specific example on what kind of data you would like to store associated with the server that is so big storing it in yaml would be too large in size? Besides if you have that much data why not use a database?

Plugin YAML configuration files, which can't use PersistentDataTypes, as an example of one limitation.

which of those can you not store with yml?

[electronicboy]

I thought that there was discussions over file PDCs, but, the thing is that for stuff simple enough, YamlConfiguration already exists, for anything more complex, a DB would generally be the better option

[JVMJahn]

Plugin YAML configuration files, which can't use PersistentDataTypes, as an example of one limitation.

which of those can you not store with yml?

It's not necessarily about the already provided PersistentDataTypes, but rather when having custom PersistentDataTypes which would be better to reuse uniformly for all serialization instead of creating separate serialization methods based on whether you're saving to a YamlConfiguration, DB or a PDC.

Besides if you have that much data why not use a database?

for anything more complex, a DB would generally be the better option

Larger amounts of data aren't the only reason to prefer PDCs, another caveat with both YAML/DB options is that unlike with PDCs you need to handle saving/loading yourself, and especially with DBs this can be quite annoying, having to deal with asynchrony, race conditions and such; You also sometimes don't necessarily want the user messing around with stored data when it is saved as a plain YAML document.

Of course I do agree, that when having very large and complex systems a DB should be the preferred option, but otherwise Server/Pluginbound PDCs could provide a simpler and more uniform way to store internal Plugin data.

[electronicboy]

There is no global place to store NBT, and so, you'd need to manage it yourself anyways, unless you wanted to store it on the default world

[JVMJahn]

One option would be in the config folder where the paper-global and paper-world-defaults configuration files reside. Another option would be implementing said Plugin PDCs instead which could easily be stored within the Plugin Data folder.

[electronicboy]

We generally would not be interested in attempting to introduce a new data system that we'd need to lifecycle for you, the only route I could see us supporting there is file based in which you'd need to deal with that yourself, the exact same as the configuration file, etc

[JVMJahn]

Unfortunate.