Newbie :: Traversing component heriarchy

Question

This is kind of a simple question.
I have a few classes that interact in my swing app.
I have a main class which is the JFrame
then I have a class that is a panel, then a class that
is a button on the panel.
3 .java files.
I'm opening up a dialog in the third, (deepest), class
and I am allowed to specifiy a container when I
construct it. I like to do this so the dialog displays
within the app area and not somewhere strange on the
screen. I want to specify the highest level container my
Jframe.
I am currently doing it like this.
this.getParent().getParent()
from the button class I go to the panel class, then to the
JFrame class. It works.
Is there a prettier way to do this? How do I access the
JFrame container directly ?? Not a major issue, but it
just looks bad. Plus, if I ever modify the depth of said
element, then this relative reference may be invalidated.
Thanks
Josh

Answer 1

Without passing in a reference to the frame you can't do it. To always get the root. You must write a function that recursively goes up the tree
Component root = null;
public void getRoot(Component c)
if (c.getParent == null)
root = c;
else
getRoot(c);
something like that