searching through hierarchy

Questions & Answers
1

can someone point me in the direction how to search game objects by keyword or partial name i know about GameObject.Find, FindWithTag and GameObject.FindGameObjectsWithTag but that works if you know the exact name or tag, what if i know the name partially? how to handle this?

4

I second VS48's answer as being the cleanest, but if you're not worried about perfs you can do something simpler like this:

[WARNING - BAAAAD PERFS]

GameObject FindByPartialName(string searchString)
{
    foreach (Object obj in Object.FindObjectsOfType(typeof(GameObject)))
    {
        if (obj.name.Contains(searchString))
            return obj as GameObject;
    }
    return null;
}
2

At the upper-right corner of the hierarchy pane, next to "Create", you should see a text input box with a magnifying glass and "All" in it. Type into that box to search all of your assets already existent within the scene.

3

Unless you have a compelling reason for doing partial name/tag matching, I'm going to say it's a bad idea and you should almost certainly search for another way to accomplish that goal. For example, maintain a static dictionary of lists to each type of object you may want to find. For example, 

using System.Collections.Generic;

public class HorribleObjectList : MonoBehaviour
{
    public enum MyObjectTypes { Clown=1, Tree, Missile, Etc };

    public static Dictionary<MyObjectTypes, List<GameObject>> AllTypesOfObjects;

    public static void YoRegisterMyObjectFool(GameObject newObject, MyObjectTypes objectType)
    {
        if(AllTypesOfObjects == null)
            AllTypesOfObjects = new Dictionary<MyObjectTypes, List<GameObject>>();

        if (!AllTypesOfObjects.ContainsKey(objectType))
        {
            AllTypesOfObjects.Add(objectType, new List<GameObject>());
        }

        AllTypesOfObjects[objectType].Add(newObject);
    }
}

Then from your Clown controller you can be like,

void Start() 
{ 
    HorribleObjectList.YoRegisterMyObjectFool(gameObject, HorribleObjectList.MyObjectTypes.Clown);
}

Or something. Anyway, now HorribleObjectList.AllTypesOfObjects[HorribleObjectList.MyObjectTypes.Clown] will have all your clowns, and HorribleObjectList.AllTypesOfObjects[HorribleObjectList.MyObjectTypes.Missile] is a list of all the missiles, etc.

Hope this helps...