How to find out the type of GameObject selected in the scene?

Question

If I select some GameObject in the Unity, e.g. recently added TextMeshProUGUI inside the Canvas, where can I find out the type of selected game object?

In Inspector window, same as in Properties window (shown using context menu on the game object in Hierarcy window), I can see the name, tag, layout, etc. But where is the type?

I need to know the type to reference the game object in the code:

using TMPro;
using UnityEngine;

public class Foo: MonoBehaviour
{
    public TextMeshProUGUI bar;
    ...
    public SomeMethod() => bar.text = "bla";
}

I've found this topic which is rather confusing than helpful. Sure, all of game objects are inherited from GameObject, but to access bar.text I will need to know its type anyway.

From other point of view, I can look for components in Inspector and always use bar.GetComponent<XYZ>(), but similarly, XYZ is not shown in Inspector, I can see "TextMeshPro - Text (UI)" caption, which is not really TMPro.TextMeshProUGUI type I need to use in the code. So I have come to another question, how to get component type... Great isn't it?

I am likely missing something obvious. Am I the first asking this question?

Answer 1

Note that a TextMeshProUGUI is a Component, not a GameObject. When you add a TextMeshProUGUI component it adds it to a new GameObject by default, which can be confusing. To make this more confusing, if you drag a GameObject into a Component slot, it will look for Components that match and add those directly.

If you have dragged the GameObject that contains the TextMeshProUGUI component in bar in the Editor, then you should just be able to set it with:

bar.SetText("bla");

Also note that you should use the SetText() method with the text mesh component instead of directly setting the text property.

Answer 2

Since you can add multiple components on a GameObject, there is no defined type for a GameObject (i.e. its type is already a GameObject). From there you can only try GetComponent<>() (or GetComponent(s)InChildren<>() for more complex objects) and see if there is one.

var textComponent = GetComponent<TextMeshProUGUI>();
if (textComponent != null) { // do something }

Or, you can use a serialized field and assign it manually from Unity editor, or automatically during Awake().

About your question on the naming of TextMeshPro components, they use a specific attribute to display a different name in Editor (which I believe is an anti-pattern for Unity). If you check the TextMeshProUGUI source code you can see it there:

...
[AddComponentMenu("UI/TextMeshPro - Text (UI)", 11)]
...
public partial class TextMeshProUGUI : TMP_Text, ILayoutElement
{
    ...
{

` For finding such type names conveniently, you can do a text search across the solution for the name you see in Unity editor (e.g. UI/TextMeshPro - Text (UI)) and see type names (e.g. TextMeshProUGUI) in source code instead of struggling around the documentation or web.