The sentence "I found what I was looking for in my purse" contains the noun clause <em>what I was looking for</em>.
This clause answers the question "What did I find?" Such questions are answered with <u>direct objects</u>. It means that the noun clause is used as a direct object.
Explanation: A noun clause is a group of words acting together as a noun (subject, direct object, indirect object, etc). These clauses are always dependent clauses (they don't have complete meaning on their own). In the given sentence we can see an example of a noun clause in the phrase "what I was looking for" this clause is acting as a direct object because it is anwsering the question "what did I find?"
