What is the correct way to use GameObject.Find in Unity?

Question

I have been following along with a Lynda.com video course to familiarize with Unity. I am currently attempting to grab a reference to a scene's First Person Controller's transform as follows:

Transform targetObject;

// Use this for initialization
void Start ()
{
    targetObject = gameObject.Find("First Person Controller").transform;
}

And this is within a script/class that inherits from MonoBehaviour. However, this gives the error:

 Static member `UnityEngine.GameObject.Find(string)' cannot be accessed with an instance reference, qualify it with a type name instead

I am sure there is a way to just change the logic and get the desired affect with a different approach. But I do not understand why this results in an error. It is the same code used by the instructor of the course, and from the Unity Script Reference, I can see that MonoBehaviour inherits a gameObject member which has the Find() method. So this error is saying there is only one GameObject instance for all MonoBehaviour classes right? But shouldn't I still be able to call it's methods?

I am using Unity 4.1 with C# while the instructor is using 3.5 (with JS) if that helps any.

Answer 1

You actually just made a simple typo. gameObject is the current GameObject that your script is attached to. GameObject is the type. The error message is saying that the Find(string) function only works when it is called on the type (GameObject) not an instance of the type (gameObject).

Simply put, use GameObject.Find("First Person Controller") instead of gameObject.Find("First Person Controller").

Answer 2

Transform targetObject;

// Use this for initialization
void Start ()
{
    targetObject = GameObject.Find("First Person Controller").GetComponent<Transform>();
}