IUIAutomationElement::FindFirst method

Retrieves the first child or descendant element that matches the specified condition.

Syntax

HRESULT FindFirst(
  [in]           TreeScope scope,
  [in]           IUIAutomationCondition *condition,
  [out, retval]  IUIAutomationElement **found
);

Parameters

scope [in]

Type: TreeScope

A combination of values specifying the scope of the search.

condition [in]

Type: IUIAutomationCondition*

A pointer to a condition that represents the criteria to match.

found [out, retval]

Type: IUIAutomationElement**

Receives a pointer to the element. NULL is returned if no matching element is found.

Return value

Type: HRESULT

If this method succeeds, it returns S_OK. Otherwise, it returns an HRESULT error code.

Remarks

The scope of the search is relative to the element on which the method is called. Elements are returned in the order in which they were encountered in the tree.

This function cannot search for ancestor elements in the Microsoft UI Automation tree; that is, TreeScope_Ancestors is not a valid value for the scope parameter.

When searching for top-level windows on the desktop, be sure to specify TreeScope_Children in the scope parameter, not TreeScope_Descendants. A search through the entire subtree of the desktop could iterate through thousands of items and lead to a stack overflow.

If your client application might try to find elements in its own user interface, you must make all UI Automation calls on a separate thread.

Requirements

See also

Reference

IUIAutomationElement

FindAll

FindAllBuildCache

FindFirstBuildCache

Conceptual

Obtaining UI Automation Elements

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Build date: 11/28/2012