Question

How do you access the Description property on either a const or a property, i.e.,

public static class Group {      [Description( 'Specified parent-child relationship already exists.' )]     public const int ParentChildRelationshipExists = 1;      [Description( 'User is already a member of the group.' )]     public const int UserExistsInGroup = 2;  } 

or

public static class Group {      [Description( 'Specified parent-child relationship already exists.' )]     public static int ParentChildRelationshipExists {        get { return 1; }      }      [Description( 'User is already a member of the group.' )]     public static int UserExistsInGroup {        get { return 2; }      }  } 

In the calling class I’d like to access the Description property, i.e.,

int x = Group.UserExistsInGroup; string description = Group.UserExistsInGroup.GetDescription(); // or similar 

I’m open to ideas to other methodologies as well.

EDIT: I should have mentioned that I’ve seen an example provided here: Do auto-implemented properties support attributes?

However, I’m looking for a method to access the description attribute without having to enter a string literal into the property type, i.e., I’d rather not do this:

typeof(Group).GetProperty('UserExistsInGroup'); 

Something along the lines of an Extension Method; similar to the following method that will return the Description attribute on an Enum via an Extension Method:

public static String GetEnumDescription( this Enum obj ) {     try     {         System.Reflection.FieldInfo fieldInfo =              obj.GetType().GetField( obj.ToString() );          object[] attribArray = fieldInfo.GetCustomAttributes( false );          if (attribArray.Length > 0)         {             var attrib = attribArray[0] as DescriptionAttribute;              if( attrib != null  )                 return attrib.Description;         }         return obj.ToString();     }     catch( NullReferenceException ex )     {         return 'Unknown';     } } 

Answer 1

You can call MemberInfo.GetCustomAttributes() to get any custom attributes defined on a member of a Type. You can get the MemberInfo for the property by doing something like this:

PropertyInfo prop = typeof(Group).GetProperty('UserExistsInGroup',     BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static);