Using GetProperties() in C#

Posted by Rhonda

Reflection, in the simple terms, is the ability to extract information about an object during runtime. I found a great explanation of why Reflection is used in a tutorial titled Reflection in C#.

With reflection we can dynamically create an instance of a type, bind the type to an existing object, or get the type from an existing object and invoke its methods or access its fields and properties. If Attributes (C#) are used in application, then with help of reflection we can access these attributes. It can be even used to emit Intermediate Language code dynamically so that the generated code can be executed directly.

I have been doing some research and test apps using the GetProperties method. GetProperties basically returns array of PropertyInfo objects.

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Sample Program

using System;
using System.Reflection;

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var person = new Person
        {
            Name = "Rhonda",
            FaveShow = "Fringe, Lost",
            FaveMovie = "Star Trek",
            FaveSong = "Contagious"
        };

        var type = typeof(Person);
        var properties = type.GetProperties();

        foreach (PropertyInfo property in properties)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("{0} : {1}", 
                             property.Name, property.GetValue(person, null));
        }

        Console.Read();
    }
}

public class Person
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string FaveShow { get; set; }
    public string FaveMovie { get; set; }
    public string FaveSong { get; set; }
}