Question

I have a class that contains another poco class with simple get set properties:

public class PersonalInformation    {
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string FirstSomethingElse { get; set; }
}

I would like to find out if the current instance’s PersonalInformation.FirstName has a value. I can’t figure out how to obtain it via reflection:

foreach (PropertyInfo property in this.PersonalInformation.GetType().GetProperties())
{
    if (property.Name.Contains("First"))
    {
    if (property.GetValue(XXX, null) != null)
                            do something...

    }
}

The instance I have is “this”, which does not work, neither does this.PersonalInformation. What am I doing wrong?

Thank you for your response,

Aldo

Addendum: I’m using ASP.NET MVC3. In my razor view I can do the following very easily:

foreach (var property in Model.PersonalInformation.GetType().GetProperties()) 
{
    <div class="editor-line">
        @if (property.Name != null)
        {
        <label>@(property.Name)</label>
        @Html.Editor(property.Name)
        }
    </div>
}

there is a property.Value member that returns the current value of the field. This field comes from a poco class, as you see above. What would be the equivalent code in the code-behind?

Answer 1

this.PersonalInformation certainly should work. After all, that’s the target you’re talking about.

Sample code:

using System;
using System.Reflection;

public class PersonalInformation    {
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string FirstSomethingElse { get; set; }
}

public class Foo 
{
    public PersonalInformation PersonalInformation { get; set; }

    public void ShowProperties()
    {
        foreach (var property in this.PersonalInformation
                                     .GetType()
                                     .GetProperties())
        {
            var value = property.GetValue(this.PersonalInformation, null);
            Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", property.Name, value);
        }
    }
}

class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Foo foo = new Foo { 
            PersonalInformation = new PersonalInformation {
                FirstName = "Fred",
                FirstSomethingElse = "XYZ"
            }
        };
        foo.ShowProperties();
    }
}

Although if you just “want to find out if the current instance’s PersonalInformation.FirstName has a value” then I don’t see why you’re using reflection…