Destroying instantiated objects in Unity

Question

I want to delete an instantiated gameobject in Unity. I am using a for loop in instantiating a dynamic buttons and I want to destroy it before using it again because number of buttons is just appending and not over writing. This is my code in instantiating:

for(int i = 0; i < num; i++)
    {

        goButton = (GameObject)Instantiate(prefabButton);
        goButton.transform.SetParent(panel, false);
        goButton.transform.localScale = new Vector3(1, 1, 1);
        //print name in Button
        goButton.GetComponentInChildren<Text> ().text = names[i];

        //get Url from firebase
        string Url = url[i]; 
        WWW www = new WWW (Url);
        yield return www;
        Texture2D texture = www.texture;

        //load image in button
        Image img = goButton.GetComponent<Image>();
        img.sprite = Sprite.Create (texture, new Rect (0, 0, texture.width, texture.height),Vector2.zero);

        Button tempButton = goButton.GetComponent<Button>();

        int tempInt = i;

        string name = names [i];

        tempButton.onClick.AddListener (() => hello (tempInt, name));
    }

I tried adding Destroy(goButton) before the for loop but only the last button is being destroyed. What could be the possible solution? Thanks

Answer 1

When you call Destroy(goButton), it will only destroy the current GameObject that variable is referencing (not all the GameObjects it used to reference). It seems like the problem you're trying to solve is "How can I destroy multiple instantiated objects" and you have two basic options here. One would be to save references to all the GameObjects in a C# collection (like a List<> or HashSet<>). Your other option would be to use an empty GameObject as a "container object", parent everything under that, then destroy the container when you're done with them all.

Creating/Deleting via the first option would look something like this:

// Note this class is incomplete but should serve as an example
public class ButtonManager
{
    private List<GameObject> m_allButtons = new List<GameObject>();

    public void CreateButtons()
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < num; i++)
        {
            GameObject goButton = (GameObject)Instantiate(prefabButton);
            m_allButtons.Add(goButton);
            ...
        } 
    }

    public void DestroyButtons()
    {
        foreach (GameObject button in allButtons)
        {
            Destroy(button);
        }
        allButtons.Clear();
    }
}