Question

How do I determine if a Nullable(of Enum) is indeed an Enum by means of reflection?

I’m working with a method that dynamically populates an object of type T with an IDataReader retrieved from a database call. At its essence, it loops through the datareader’s ordinals, and all the properties of T and populates the properties that match the name of the ordinals (also some attribute magic is thrown to change column names). In every other circumstance, it works great, but when I check the property’s BaseType for System.Enum I find instead, System.ValueType Thusly, my Enum check fails and the method bombs.

[Edit: Type.IsEnum doesn’t work how I need it. The main issue here, is that nothing in T‘s BaseType hierarchy says that it is an Enum. It’s as if making it a Nullable type forfeits my Enum rights.]

Any ideas?

Answer 1

It’s a bit cumbersome:

• Get type from PropertyInfo.PropertyType
• Test for IsGenericType
• If it is, get the generic type with GetGenericTypeDefinition()
• If that type equals typeof(Nullable<>), you have a Nullable
• Get the underlying (i.e. Enum) type with Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(propertyInfo.PropertyType)