MEL/PyMEL: Get Top Most Parent Of An Object

Here is a function I use often that will give you the top-most parent of any object. I use it when I want to perform a function on an entire heirarchy but don't want to worry about needing to select the top most object. I can just grab any of them, hit a button and it grabs the top (using the function here) and then selects or grabs the entire hierarchy. I'm kind of OCD about saving every possible second.

Mel Version:

// **********************************************************
// Return Top Parent Of Any Node
global proc string jgReturnTopParent (string $obj) {

string $a[] = {} ;
string $b ;
$a = `listRelatives -p $obj` ;
while(size($a) > 0) {
    $b = $a[0] ;
    $a = `listRelatives -p $a[0]` ;
}
return $b ;

}

PyMel Version:

##################################################
## Return Top Parent Of Any Node
def jgReturnTopParent(obj):

 # Imports
 import pymel.core as pm

 # Get First Parent
 varA = pm.listRelatives(obj,p=True)

 # Loop All Parents
 while(len(varA) > 0):

    varB = varA[0]
    varA = pm.listRelatives(varA[0],p=True)

 return varB

Update: Thanks to Scott Englert for pointing out in the comments that MEL and PyMel both have built in functions for this already.

MEL command that comes with Maya:
rootOf($obj);

PyMEL method of dag nodes:
obj.root()

Cheers Scott!