Question

Consider this interesting set of types:

class A     { public virtual     int MyProperty { get; set; } }
class B : A { public override    int MyProperty { get; set; } }
class C : B { public new virtual int MyProperty { get; set; } }
class D : C { public override    int MyProperty { get; set; } }
class E : D { public new         int MyProperty { get; set; } }

I see three different properties here, with five implementations hiding or overriding each other.

I’m trying to get the set of property declarations for type E:

A.MyProperty
C.MyProperty
E.MyProperty

But my code below gives me the set of property implementations:

A.MyProperty
B.MyProperty
C.MyProperty
D.MyProperty
E.MyProperty

What do I need to do to get the property declarations?

Or is there any chance that B.MyProperty will ever return a value other than A.MyProperty for any instance of E?

If my approach is heading in the wrong direction: How do I get all property members of a type including any hidden ones, but not including those that will never have different values?

---

void GetProperties(Type type)
{
    if (type.BaseType != null)
    {
        GetProperties(type.BaseType);
    }

    foreach (var item in type.GetProperties(BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly | BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public))
    {
        Console.WriteLine("{0}.{1}", type.Name, item.Name);
    }
}

---

Desired outputs:

typeof(A)       typeof(B)       typeof(C)       typeof(D)       typeof(E)
------------    ------------    ------------    ------------    ------------
A.MyProperty    A.MyProperty    A.MyProperty    A.MyProperty    A.MyProperty
                                C.MyProperty    C.MyProperty    C.MyProperty
                                                                E.MyProperty

Answer 1

This may get you started down the path that you want:

    static void GetProperties(Type type)
    {
        if (type.BaseType != null)
        {
            GetProperties(type.BaseType);
        }

        foreach (var item in type.GetProperties(BindingFlags.FlattenHierarchy | BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public))
        {
            MethodInfo method = item.GetGetMethod();
            MethodInfo baseMethod = method.GetBaseDefinition();

            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} {1}.{2} {3}.{4}", type.Name, method.DeclaringType.Name, method.Name, baseMethod.DeclaringType, baseMethod.Name));

            if (baseMethod.DeclaringType == type)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}", type.Name, item.Name);
            }
        }
    }

This code outputs the following:

A MyProperty

C MyProperty

E MyProperty

Note that this code depends on using the MethodInfo of the get method associated with the property. If you happen to have set-only properties, then you’ll need to do some extra checks to handle that case.