What is the most robust way of linking members with their string name?

Except in limited circumstances, I don't think there is a robust way - you just have to know what the property's name is.

If a class contained only one public instance readable property of a given type, then you could do it by reflection as below but clearly this wouldn't work for arbitrary types:

using System;

using System.Reflection;

class MyClass

{

int wop;

public static int StaticProperty { get; set; }

public int WriteOnlyProperty { set{ wop = value; } }

public int MyProperty { get; set; }

}

class Test

{

static void Main()

{

MyClass mc = new MyClass();

string name = GetStringName(mc, mc.MyProperty);

Console.WriteLine(name);

Console.ReadKey();

}

public static string GetStringName(object instance, object prop)

{

Type t = instance.GetType();

Type v = prop.GetType();

PropertyInfo[] pia = t.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public);

foreach(PropertyInfo pi in pia)

{

if(pi.CanRead && pi.PropertyType == v)

{

return pi.Name;

}

return null;

}

In these limited circumstances, the program is able to successfully deduce that the property is called "MyProperty".

1 Reply

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Vulpes15y ago
Except in limited circumstances, I don't think there is a robust way - you just have to know what the property's name is.

If a class contained only one public instance readable property of a given type, then you could do it by reflection as below but clearly this wouldn't work for arbitrary types:

using System;
using System.Reflection;

class MyClass
{
int wop;
public static int StaticProperty { get; set; }
public int WriteOnlyProperty { set{ wop = value; } }
public int MyProperty { get; set; }
}

class Test
{
static void Main()
{
MyClass mc = new MyClass();
string name = GetStringName(mc, mc.MyProperty);
Console.WriteLine(name);
Console.ReadKey();
}

public static string GetStringName(object instance, object prop)
{
Type t = instance.GetType();
Type v = prop.GetType();
PropertyInfo[] pia = t.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public);
foreach(PropertyInfo pi in pia)
{
if(pi.CanRead && pi.PropertyType == v)
{
return pi.Name;
}
}
return null;
}
}

In these limited circumstances, the program is able to successfully deduce that the property is called "MyProperty".
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