Question

Given a property in a class, with attributes – what is the fastest way to determine if it contains a given attribute? For example:

    [IsNotNullable]
    [IsPK]
    [IsIdentity]
    [SequenceNameAttribute("Id")]
    public Int32 Id
    {
        get
        {
            return _Id;
        }
        set
        {
            _Id = value;
        }
    }

What is the fastest method to determine that for example it has the “IsIdentity” attribute?

Answer 1

There’s no fast way to retrieve attributes. But code ought to look like this (credit to Aaronaught):

var t = typeof(YourClass);
var pi = t.GetProperty("Id");
var hasIsIdentity = Attribute.IsDefined(pi, typeof(IsIdentity));

If you need to retrieve attribute properties then

var t = typeof(YourClass);
var pi = t.GetProperty("Id");
var attr = (IsIdentity[])pi.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(IsIdentity), false);
if (attr.Length > 0) {
    // Use attr[0], you'll need foreach on attr if MultiUse is true
}