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How do I use variables in findfirstchild()?

Asked Jun 21, 20182,163 views2 answers

I need to find the child of workspace whose name is equal to the string stored in the variable. The problem is when I try to use a variable in findfirstchild, it says the variable is a nil value. This is what I tried:

thisbrick = script.Parent

game.Workspace:FindFirstChild(thisbrick).Transparency = 0.5

In the output it says thisbrick is a nil value.

Yes, I know I could just say script.Parent.Transparency = 0.5, but this is just an example as I need to apply this to a much larger script where doing so wouldn't work, and I decided to just write it on it's own to save your time. If there is an easier way to do this without using findfirstchild please let me know. Thanks!

AnonymousJun 21, 2018Edited Jun 21, 2018

2 answers

✓ Accepted answer

Hi Faazo,

The problem is that you're using an Instance in :FindFirstChild()'s parameter rather than a string. Try getting the name of the script.Parent and put that in :FindFirstChild(). For example:

local thisbrick = script.Parent;
local brc = workspace:FindFirstChild(thisbrick.Name); -- Also, the cool thing is that :FindFirstChild() has a second optional parameter, which allows you to choose if it should look through the descendants of everything in workspace. So, if it's hidden somewhere, :FindFirstChild() would still find it as long as it's under workspace.

##Well, I hope I helped and have a wonderful day/night.

Thanks,

Best regards,

~~ KingLoneCat

AnonymousJun 21, 2018Edited Jun 21, 2018Permalink

1 comment

How would you do this for an updating number value?

AnonymousDec 27, 2018#

The problem in your script is that you're trying to use object in FindFirstChild, not a string which you are supposed to. In your case simple fix would be to just add .Name to FindFirstChild argument

So your script would be:

thisbrick = script.Parent

game.Workspace:FindFirstChild(thisbrick.Name).Transparency = 0.5

Also just in case if you were using a local script, it won't execute in workspace so you should use a server script instead.

oops, sorry I was too slow

AnonymousJun 21, 2018Edited Jun 21, 2018Permalink

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