Question

If I declare the following in my class:

private int? MyID = null;

And then attempt to access it via reflection, it won’t be able to find it. What I mean by that is, the below will set gProp to null:

gType = refObj.GetType();
gProp = gType.GetProperty(PropertyName, System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Public | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance);

However, it will work fine if I instead declare it as:

private int? MyID { get; set; }

This isn’t at all surprising to me as I already knew this to be the case. However, I wanted to confirm; is there anyway to make the first declaration work with reflection, or do I have provide a Getter/Setter in order for reflection to work?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You need the GetField method (instead of GetProperty) for Fields.

Type.GetFields Method
Searches for the specified field, using the specified binding constraints.

Sample

// your instance
MyObject instance = new MyObject();
// get type information
Type myType = typeof(MyObject);
// get field information
FieldInfo fieldInfo = myType.GetField("MyID");
// set some value
fieldInfo.SetValue(instance, 123);
// get field value
var value = fieldInfo.GetValue(instance);
// value is 123

More Information

• MSDN – Type.GetField Method (String, BindingFlags)
• MSDN – SetField Method (String, BindingFlags, Object)