How can I access GetComponentInChildren as string?

Question

I want to access two Sliders on the same GameObject. Usually, I'd just use:

 mySlider = GameObject.Find("myObject").GetComponentInChildren<Slider>();

However, I want to access one slider for music and one for soundFX. To distinguish the two, I thought that I'd try this method:

 musicSlider = GameObject.Find("HUDCanvas").GetComponentInChildren("MusicVolume") as Slider;
 musicToggle = musicSlider.GetComponent<Toggle>();
 soundSlider= GameObject.Find("HUDCanvas").GetComponentInChildren("SoundFXVolume") as Slider;

It seems that we can't use a string for "InChildren".

The only other way that I can think of is to create an array, then loops through the array to find component by string. Is there a better solution or is this how you'd do it?

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by LK84 · Nov 24, 2016 at 09:57 AM

You can write an extension method gor game object to find a component in a child by name (or by tag which is faster). It could look like this:

     public static T FindComponentInChildWithTag<T>(this GameObject parent, string tag) where T : Component
         {
             Transform t = parent.transform;
             foreach (Transform tr in t)
             {
                 if (tr.tag == tag)
                 {
                        if(tr.GetComponent<T>!=null)                 
                              return tr.GetComponent<T>();
                 }
                 else //Find in GrandChildren
                 {
                     T dummy;
                     dummy = tr.gameObject.FindComponentInChildWithTag<T>(tag);
                     if (dummy!=null)
                         return dummy;
                 }
             }
     
             return null;
         }

Note: It's generic, so you can use it for any component, not only slider. Plus it also searches for grandchildren. It you don't need that stuff, you can remove it of course. You can use the extension method like this:

 musicSlider=GameObject.Find("myObject").FindComponentInChildWithTag<Slider>("MusicVolume");

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Wampster · Nov 24, 2016 at 10:37 AM 0

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This is a nice solution. $$anonymous$$uch more advanced than anything that I would have thought of. I am going tp have to go and digest this. Thank you very much for your help.

LK84 Wampster · Nov 24, 2016 at 11:37 AM 0

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You're welcome. I just added a little modification to check if the gameobject with the right tag has the component (otherwise you'd get null returned). Forget that when I wrote the reply first

brian-nielsen · Dec 04, 2020 at 05:57 PM 0

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4 years later this is still helping. Thank you very much :)

For those like me that didn't know what an extension method was here is a little Unity video that explains.

https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/extension-methods#5c89416dedbc2a1410355318

How can I access GetComponentInChildren as string?

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