Question

If a control is not given a name or an id is it still unique, or better yet can it be accessed at all in code? Also if it still identifiable what determines its identity in relationship to other controls that don’t have names or ids?

Answer 1

It is still unique as each Object. It inherits from Object.

To see the Hashcode with which you can also compare to another Object you can use following code:

example XAML:

<Grid Name="BaseGrid">
    <Button Content="Button" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="73,34,0,0"  VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="75" />
    <Button Content="Button" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="73,101,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="75" />
</Grid>

code to visualise the HashCode:

foreach (UIElement child in BaseGrid.Children)
{
    MessageBox.Show(child.GetHashCode().ToString());
}

but to come back to your question “what determines its identity in relationship to other controls”: Every object is a pointer to an area of memory on the heap. The XAML just tells the compiler how to load the objects. after they are loaded they are referenced by the memory address.