Question

I need to find all properties of a specific object which are not readonly and based on their type do something
I mean if the type of property is int i need to do sth and if it is string i should do something else

using reflection and get this type and conventionally i can create an object which can do what I want
for example if the property type is Int , I can create an instance of IntType:IType class

but I have another option: set an attribute for each property and based on these attributes,find suitable IType
I just cant decide which one is better?

Answer 1

If all the information you need is already contained in the type of the property, I can’t see how introducing a new attribute is a good idea. Aside from anything else, you can easily forget to update the attribute when the data type changes. You start off with:

[Int32Type]
int Foo { get; set; }

then find you actually need it to be a long, but forget to change the attribute:

[Int32Type]
long Foo { get; set; }

Now you’re probably going to be acting incorrectly on it.

If you’re really adding information – e.g. if not all int properties need to be treated the same way – that’s a different matter.