Resolved Mask or fix intentional out of bounds error

Hello, i'm trying to put all the chairs, under the GameObject this script is attached to, into a list. I want to make the amount of chairs vary, so i can't drag them into the list in Unity.
when i run the game it says:

UnityException: Transform child out of bounds
ChairRegistry.Start () (at Assets/Scripts/ChairRegistry.cs:13)

I know it would be out of bounds, that's when i want the script to stop. And it's not a major issue, but the more i have of these errors, the harder it will be to find the actual errors.

Help would be much appriciated

the code i have problems with is the following:

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4.  
5. public class ChairRegistry : MonoBehaviour
6. {
7.     public List<GameObject> chairObject;
8.  
9.     // Start is called before the first frame update
10.     void Start()
11.     {
12.         int chairCount = 0;
13.         while ( transform.GetChild(chairCount).transform)
14.         {
15.             GameObject objectfound = transform.GetChild(chairCount).gameObject;
16.             chairObject.Add(objectfound);
17.             chairCount += 1;
18.         }
19.     }

 

There are much better ways to loop through the children of a transform than intentionally throwing an exception! Here's a couple examples:

Code (CSharp):

1. foreach (Transform child in transform) {
2.   GameObject objectfound = child.gameObject;
3.   chairObject.Add(objectfound);
4.   // etc...
5. }

Code (CSharp):

1. for (int i = 0; i < transform.childCount; i++) {
2.   Transform child = transform.GetChild(i);
3.   GameObject objectfound = child.gameObject;
4.   chairObject.Add(objectfound);
5.   // etc...
6. }

 

You can catch errors and stop them with a try .. catch block, but relying on this as a way of terminating your loop is generally a bad idea when you have other options. (It's bad because it'll also "catch" unintentional exceptions, causing things to fail silently.) And you do have other options!

If your chairs have a script on them (and, if they're being used as participants in the game as they seem to be, they probably should), use GetComponentsInChildren<YourChairScript>(), and loop through the array that returns. (Adding a script to your chairs won't cause performance problems as long as you remove the empty Start() and Update() methods from it)

This also will loop through all children of a transform, but I'd recommend this only if the above isn't an option for some reason - if you ever add non-chair objects into the hierarchy, that will mess up this approach.

Code (csharp):

1. foreach (Transform child in transform) {
2. chairObject.Add(child.gameObject);
3. }

 

Code (CSharp):

1.       while (chairCount <transform.childCount)
2.         {
3.             GameObject objectfound = transform.GetChild(chairCount).gameObject;
4.             chairObject.Add(objectfound);
5.             chairCount += 1;
6.         }

 

Ty for your response! <3