Shorthand for GetComponent?

Questions & Answers
1

Is there any shorthand for obj.GetComponent(MyComponent)?

It seems obj.transform and obj.GetComponent(Transform) are equivalent so why doesn’t obj.myComponent work?

2

There are shorthands for all the inbuilt components- these exist to make life easier for you. If you really wanted to, in C# you could add extra ones for custom components using extension methods, but that’s really not necessary.

Basically, obj.myComponent doesn’t work for the simplest of reasons- it just doesn’t exist, because it’s never been defined. Why do you think you don’t see it in the script reference? obj.transform works because it’s been written already- you could write extra ones yourself but it’d really make things confusing.

Oh, there’s this:

private MyComponent _myComponent;

public MyComponent myComponent
{
    get {
        if(_myComponent == null)
        {
            _myComponent = GetComponent<MyComponent>();
        }
        return _myComponent;
    }
}

Then, you can use the shortcut:

myScript.myComponent

inside the script where you have this defined.

Or, there’s this:

public static MyComponent myComponent(this MonoBehaviour script)
{
    return script.GetComponent<MyComponent>();
}

(used like this)

anyMonoBehaviourScript.myComponent();

but that’s just stupid.