How to highlight an object in the heirarchy from code?

Questions & Answers
1

I have an editor script that finds objects in the scene which reference the currently selected object, adds them to a List and then sets Selection.objects to those objects:

    foreach (UnityObject sceneObject in sceneObjects)
    {
        // Iterate over the fields in the object
        FieldInfo[] fInfos = sceneObject.GetType().GetFields(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
        bool addedObjectToReferences = false;
        foreach (FieldInfo fInfo in fInfos)
        {
            bool fieldReferencesValue = false;
            SysObject fieldValue = fInfo.GetValue(sceneObject);
            if (fieldValue == selection)
            {
                fieldReferencesValue = true;
            }
            else if (fInfo.FieldType.IsArray && fInfo.FieldType.GetElementType().IsAssignableFrom(selectionType))
            {
                // This is an array field, check each of it's elements for a reference
                foreach (System.Object element in (System.Object[]) fieldValue)
                {
                    if (element == selection)
                    {
                        fieldReferencesValue = true;
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }
            if (fieldReferencesValue)
            {
                if (!addedObjectToReferences)
                {
                    EditorGUIUtility.PingObject(sceneObject);
                    references.Add(sceneObject);
                    addedObjectToReferences = true;
                }

                // Log with context for easy use
                Log.Log(string.Format("{0} referenced by {1} ({2}.{3})", selection, sceneObject.name, sceneObject.GetType().Name, fInfo.Name), sceneObject);
            }
        }
    }

    if (references.Count == 0)
    {
        EditorUtility.DisplayDialog("No references", "No references found to selection", "Ok");
    }
    else
    {
        Log.Log(string.Format("Found {0} references to {1}", references.Count, selection.name));
        Selection.objects = references.ToArray();
    }

For the most part this works beautifully, the references are found and selected (I can tell they are selected by the content of the inspector), but they are not hilighted in the Hierarchy. Am I missing something here? Is there some way to force the editor to highlight the current selection(s)?

2

Edit: I just reread your question. Make sure to pass GameObject into Selection.objects, not Object and it’ll work.

Also, take a look at EditorGUIUtility.PingObject.

function Ping() {
    if(!Selection.activeObject) {
        Debug.LogError("Select an object to ping");
        return;
    }
    
    for(var o in Selection.objects) {
        EditorGUIUtility.PingObject(o);
        Debug.Log("Pinged " + o.name);
    }
}

–David–

3

Modified script to work by pressing D when selecting an object in the hierarchy. It will find and highlight objects that are referencing the selected objects.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Reflection;
  using UnityEditor;
  using UnityEngine;
  
public class BacktraceReference {
		private Component _theObject;
		
		public static List<UnityEngine.Object> find;

		[MenuItem("Tools/What Objects Reference this? _d")]
		public static void FindReferences() {
			
			find = new List<UnityEngine.Object>();

			foreach (var item in Selection.objects) {
				var g = item as GameObject;
				if (g) {
					foreach (var c in g.GetComponents<Component>()) {
						FindObjectsReferencing(c);
					}
				}
			}
			
			if (find.Count == 0) {
				// Debug.Log("<b>No objects reference this</b>");
			}
			else {
				Selection.objects = find.ToArray();
			}
				foreach (var o in Selection.objects) {
					EditorGUIUtility.PingObject(o);
				}
		}
		private static void FindObjectsReferencing<T>(T mb) where T : Component {
				var objs = Resources.FindObjectsOfTypeAll(typeof (Component)) as Component[];
				if (objs == null) return;
				foreach (Component obj in objs) {
						FieldInfo[] fields =
								obj.GetType().GetFields(BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance |
																				BindingFlags.Static);
						foreach (FieldInfo fieldInfo in fields) {
								if (FieldReferencesComponent(obj, fieldInfo, mb)) {
									var contains = false;
									foreach (var item in Selection.objects) {
										if (item == obj.gameObject) {
											contains = true;
											break;
										}
									}
									contains |= find.Contains(obj.gameObject);
									if (!contains) {
										find.Add(obj.gameObject);
										Debug.Log("<b>" + obj.gameObject +  "</b>

", obj.gameObject);
}
}
}
}
}

		private static bool FieldReferencesComponent<T>(Component obj, FieldInfo fieldInfo, T mb) where T : Component {
				if (fieldInfo.FieldType.IsArray) {
						var arr = fieldInfo.GetValue(obj) as Array;
						if (arr != null) {
							foreach (object elem in arr) {
									if (elem != null && mb != null && elem.GetType() == mb.GetType()) {
											var o = elem as T;
											if (o == mb)
													return true;
									}
							}
						}
				}
				else {
						if (fieldInfo.FieldType == mb.GetType()) {
								var o = fieldInfo.GetValue(obj) as T;
								if (o == mb)
										return true;
						}
				}
				return false;
		}
}