Question

I’d like to find all the types inheriting from a base/interface. Anyone have a good method to do this? Ideas?

I know this is a strange request but its something I’m playing with none-the-less.

Answer 1

Use Assembly.GetTypes() to get all the types, and Type.IsAssignableFrom() to check for inheritance. Let me know if you need code – and also whether or not you’re using .NET 3.5. (A lot of reflection tasks like this are simpler with LINQ to Objects.)

EDIT: As requested, here’s an example – it finds everything in mscorlib which implements IEnumerable. Note that life is somewhat harder when the base type is generic…

using System; using System.Collections; using System.Linq; using System.Reflection;  class Test {     static void Main()     {         Assembly assembly = typeof(string).Assembly;         Type target = typeof(IEnumerable);                 var types = assembly.GetTypes()                             .Where(type => target.IsAssignableFrom(type));          foreach (Type type in types)         {             Console.WriteLine(type.Name);         }     } }