Question

I am attempting to cycle through the Fields in my class, place the fields of a certain type into a list and then return that list. I know I am missing some key component but I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong. This is what I have so far:

...

I need to return a list of the actual fields as pointers, not a copy of the data. Any help in getting this to work would be appreciated.

I removed the above code (you should still be able to see it in the history) because it was confusing. This is the updated code (with some extra stuff removed) that works thanks to the answer from competent_tech:

string prop1;
BaseClass prop2;
SubClass prop3;
SubClass prop4;

public List<BaseClass> GetData()
{
    List<BaseClass> DataList = new List<BaseClass>();

    foreach (System.Reflection.PropertyInfo thisInfo in this.GetType().GetProperties())
    {
        var tempPropery = thisInfo.GetValue(this, null);
        if (tempPropery.GetType().IsSubclassOf(typeof(BaseClass)) || tempPropery.GetType().Equals(typeof(BaseClass)))
        {
            DataList.Add((BaseClass)tempPropery);
        };
    }

    return DataList;
}

The above code will allow you to get all the properties of a specific base type from your class and return them in a list. So the above code would return prop2 – prop4.

Answer 1

You can accomplish this through reflection.

foreach (System.Reflection.PropertyInfo oProperty in this.GetType().GetProperties()) {
}

There are numerous ways that you can use this information once you have it or filter the properties (for example, by adding an attribute to the properties that you want to collect).

You can get more information from MSDN.

Note that this code specifically references properties, but there are equivalent methods for retrieving fields (GetFields) and all members (GetMembers).

Once you have the PropertyInfo, you can call the GetValue method:

        foreach (System.Reflection.PropertyInfo oProperty in this.GetType().GetProperties()) {
            Console.WriteLine(oProperty.Name + " = " + oProperty.GetValue(this, null).ToString());
        }

Alternatively, if you are looking at both fields and properties:

        foreach (System.Reflection.MemberInfo oMember in this.GetType().GetMembers())
        {
            switch (oMember.MemberType)
            {
                case System.Reflection.MemberTypes.Field:
                    var oField = (System.Reflection.FieldInfo)oMember;
                    Console.WriteLine(oField.Name + " = " + oField.GetValue(this).ToString());
                    break;

                case System.Reflection.MemberTypes.Property:
                    var oProperty = (System.Reflection.PropertyInfo)oMember;
                    Console.WriteLine(oProperty.Name + " = " + oProperty.GetValue(this, null).ToString());
                    break;

            }
        }