Finding a control on a Winforms using LINQ?

Question

I am trying to find an elegant way to get controls on a Windows Forms form by name. For example:

MyForm.GetControl \"MyTextBox\"

...

But t

Answer 1

I don't think you can create recursive linq queries directly, but you could create a recursive method using linq:

public IEnumerable FlattenHierarchy(this Control c)
{
    return new[] { c }.Concat(c.Controls.Cast().SelectMany(child => child.FlattenHierarchy()));
}

This should return a sequence containing every control contained in a control hierarchy. Then finding a match is straightforward:

public Control FindInHierarchy(this Control control, string controlName)
{
    return control.FlattenHierarchy().FirstOrDefault(c => c.Name == controlName);
}

Personally I'd avoid using linq in this way though.