Reflection in C# – Get Attribute Name and Value on Property

c++propertyinforeflection

I have a class, lets call it Book with a property called Name. With that property, I have an attribute associated with it.

public class Book
{
    [Author("AuthorName")]
    public string Name
    {
        get; private set; 
    }
}

In my main method, I'm using reflection and wish to get key value pair of each attribute for each property. So in this example, I'd expect to see "Author" for attribute name and "AuthorName" for the attribute value.

Question: How do I get the attribute name and value on my properties using Reflection?

Best Answer

Use typeof(Book).GetProperties() to get an array of PropertyInfo instances. Then use GetCustomAttributes() on each PropertyInfo to see if any of them have the Author Attribute type. If they do, you can get the name of the property from the property info and the attribute values from the attribute.

Something along these lines to scan a type for properties that have a specific attribute type and to return data in a dictionary (note that this can be made more dynamic by passing types into the routine):

public static Dictionary<string, string> GetAuthors()
{
    Dictionary<string, string> _dict = new Dictionary<string, string>();

    PropertyInfo[] props = typeof(Book).GetProperties();
    foreach (PropertyInfo prop in props)
    {
        object[] attrs = prop.GetCustomAttributes(true);
        foreach (object attr in attrs)
        {
            AuthorAttribute authAttr = attr as AuthorAttribute;
            if (authAttr != null)
            {
                string propName = prop.Name;
                string auth = authAttr.Name;

                _dict.Add(propName, auth);
            }
        }
    }

    return _dict;
}

Related Solutions

C# PropertyInfo – How to Get Specific Property Information

There is a .NET 3.5 way with lambdas/Expression that doesn't use strings...

using System;
using System.Linq.Expressions;
using System.Reflection;

class Foo
{
    public string Bar { get; set; }
}
static class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        PropertyInfo prop = PropertyHelper<Foo>.GetProperty(x => x.Bar);
    }
}
public static class PropertyHelper<T>
{
    public static PropertyInfo GetProperty<TValue>(
        Expression<Func<T, TValue>> selector)
    {
        Expression body = selector;
        if (body is LambdaExpression)
        {
            body = ((LambdaExpression)body).Body;
        }
        switch (body.NodeType)
        {
            case ExpressionType.MemberAccess:
                return (PropertyInfo)((MemberExpression)body).Member;
            default:
                throw new InvalidOperationException();
        }
    }
}

C# – Get String Name of Property Using Reflection

If you already have a PropertyInfo, then @dtb's answer of using PropertyInfo.Name is the right way. If, however, you're wanting to find out which property's code you're currently in, you'll have to traverse the current call stack to find out which method you're currently executing and derive the property name from there.

var stackTrace = new StackTrace();
var frames = stackTrace.GetFrames();
var thisFrame = frames[0];
var method = thisFrame.GetMethod();
var methodName = method.Name; // Should be get_* or set_*
var propertyName = method.Name.Substring(4);

If you don't have a PropertyInfo object, you can get that from a property expression, like this:

public static string GetPropertyName<T>(Expression<Func<T>> propertyExpression)
{
    return (propertyExpression.Body as MemberExpression).Member.Name;
}

To use it, you'd write something like this:

var propertyName = GetPropertyName(
    () => myObject.AProperty); // returns "AProperty"

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# PropertyInfo – How to Get Specific Property Information

C# – Get String Name of Property Using Reflection

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