Get a reference to a winform control from its' string name

Introduction

Have you ever tried to get a reference to a winform control that you have added to a container? I was bl...y annoyed to find out that Microsoft hadn't included that obvious functionality in VB.NET, so I wrote a function to do it. It requires the control container and the name of the control you are looking for.

Code

 Function getControlFromName(ByRef containerObj As Object, _
                          ByVal name As String) As Control
    Try
       Dim tempCtrl As Control
       For Each tempCtrl In containerObj.Controls
          If tempCtrl.Name.ToUpper.Trim = name.ToUpper.Trim Then
             Return tempCtrl
          End If
       Next tempCtrl
    Catch ex As Exception
    End Try
 End Function

Use

To use it, enclose it in a CType function to give you a useful reference to the control. Like this..

 Dim tempCtrl As Button = _
 CType(getControlFromName(TabControl1.TabPages(tabIndex), "btnName"), Button)

That's it! Hope you find it useful. :D