A Better FindControl Method

For ASP.NET web forms developers, this is a handy extension method of the Control class that returns a strongly-typed control instance from a deep recursive search at any point in the control tree hierarchy:

public static partial class ControlExtensions

{

    public static T FindControl<T>(this Control currentControl, string id) where T : Control

    {

        if (id.Equals(currentControl.ID, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))

        {

            // return control calling this method

            return currentControl as T;

        }

        // initialize potential "found" control to null

        T potentialFoundControl = null;

        foreach (Control childControl in currentControl.Controls)

        {

            // recursive call to each child control  

            potentialFoundControl = ControlExtensions.FindControl<T>(childControl, id);

            // if result is not null, match has been found, break the loop

            if (potentialFoundControl != null) { break; }

        }

        return potentialFoundControl;

    }// method

}// class

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 02, 2011
  good!!!