What data structure are tilemaps stored as?

[RipRoarinBoogerBenis]

Basically I want to save the tilemap to a txt file (or json) and then load it back into the game so player created / destroyed blocks have persistence.

Currently I use a pair of nested for loops to go through the tilemap and store each tile value into a grid, then store that grid as a string.

However, if I could just copy the tilemap grid or read it directly and cut out the middleman I feel like that would cut down on save times a good bit.

 

[Nocturne]

Tilemaps are not stored as any kind of data structure (or at least, if they are, it's not exposed to the user), so I would say that the way you are doing it currently is the only way you are going to get the data you require.