Unity Update Text on Gameobject initiated from script from other Gameobject - unity3d

Question

I am developing for the HoloLens and I Made an object that follows me around. This Gameobject is actually an UI Canvas with text in it which I set like this because i want to keep the original object as well. (Just like in the MS example):
/// <summary>
/// The object to tag along set in the unity editor
/// </summary>
public GameObject ObjectToTagAlong;
/// <summary>
/// The instantiated object to tag along that follows you around.
/// </summary>
private GameObject instantiatedObjectToTagAlong;
this.instantiatedObjectToTagAlong = GameObject.Instantiate(this.ObjectToTagAlong);
this instantiatedObject tags along just fine but now I want to update the Text on instantiatedObjectToTagAlong but have no idea how to do this. (I can very easily update the text on the 1st object but i want to do it this way)
Does anyone know how to update the text on a gameobject that is initiated from another GameObject?

Answer 1

To build on what Serlite commented with, you need to use GetComponent in combination with another script.
public class MyTextUpdater: MonoBehavior
{
public Text SuperText2;
}
Apply MyTextUpdater to your ObjectToTagAlong prefab (or GameObject if not a prefab) and, in the editor, set the value of SuperText2 to the Text object you want to update (typically this is a child of the ObjectToTagAlong GameObject).
Now anytime you want to update that Text object on your instance, instantiatedObjectToTagAlong, you can do this:
MyTextUpdater text = instantiatedObjectToTagAlong.GetComponent<MyTextUpdate>();
if (text!=NULL && text.SuperText2!=NULL) { /*do whatever you need to do on the text.SuperText2 object*/ }
EDIT:
When Unity instantiates a copy of a GameObject, it makes a "deep" copy of sorts, meaning that the copy will have the exact same structure of child GameObjects.
Original Copy
- Child A - Child A (copy)
- Child B Instanitate => - Child B (copy)
- - Grandchild A - - Grandchild A (copy)
Each child is instantiated with it's own new copy. On top of that, if Original has a MonoBehavior script that points to one of it's children (or grandchildren etc), Copy will have a script that points to the appropriately copied child.
MyTextUpdater [Original] MyTextUpdater [Copy]
- SuperText2 = Child B => - SuperText2 = Child B (copy)
Regarding the question of why have the extra script (the MyTextUpdater script):
Original is just a GameObject. In the editor you can see it has children, but that does not represent a class. You can not do something like this in a script:
Original.ChildB.Text = "Hello World!";
in the same way, you can't do this:
Copy.ChildB.Text = "Hello Copy World!";
You could create code to iterate through all the children of the GameObject looking for a child with the correct name ("ChildB"), but that is inefficient and probably bad programming.
The better way is to create a script class that actually does give you access to the child as a field in that class. And that is where the MyTextUpdater script comes in.
This would be invalid:
GameObject Copy = Instantiate(Original);
Copy.SuperText2.Text = "Some text here";
Copy does not have a field or method called SuperText2, or ChildB, or whatever you would call it. But you could do this:
GameObject Copy = Instantiate(Original);
MyTextUpdater mtu = Copy.GetComponent<MyTextUpdater>();
mtu.SuperText2.Text = "Some text here";
Assuming of course that you applied the MyTextUpdater script to Original and made the right connections to the child text component.