Find all descendants of a control in WPF? - wpf

Question

I want to get the Grid control that is wrapped in a border (no Name is assigned), the structure look like this:
<Grid x:Name="main">
<uc:myUc/>
<Border>
<!--other elements-->
</Border>
<Border>
<Grid x:Name="myGrid">
<!--I want to get all controls here-->
</Grid>
</Border>
</Grid>
myUc is a user control that has a button that when clicked, I want to get all the controls inside the grid myGrid:
this is the code I 'm using, it seems I should give a Name to the container Border to be able to get its children, but this is a huge change in my application.
var parent = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(this) as UIElement;
var grid = (parent as Grid);
var chldrn = grid.Children;
foreach (var item in chldrn)
{
var child = item;
}
//I stopped here!
Is there a way to find all descendants of an element to determie which control I take?

Answer 1

You can access any kind of child in containers by their type
XAML Example:
<Grid x:Name="myGrid">
<Button Content="Button1"></Button>
<Button Content="Button2"></Button>
<CheckBox Content="CheckBox1"></CheckBox>
</Grid>
C# Example
private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
foreach(var Child in myGrid.Children.OfType<Button>()) // this will only get buttons in grid's children
{
MessageBox.Show(Child.Content);
}
//another way:
foreach(var Child in myGrid.Children)
{
if (Child is CheckBox)
{
var checkBox = (CheckBox)Child;
checkBox.IsChecked = true;
}
}
}