Question

I’m attempting to set a property on an object using reflection.
The property is an ICollection – if the Collection has not been instantiated, I want to get that done. My problems is that I’m having issues getting the inner type of the ICollection

This is my class

public class Report(){
    public virtual ICollection<Officer> OfficerCollection { get; set; }
}

I’m trying to access the ‘Officer’ class defined below through reflection

public class Officer(){
    public string Name{ get; set; }
}

Code snippet

Report report = new Report()

PropertyInfo propertyInfo = report.GetType().GetProperty("OfficerCollection");
object entity = propertyInfo.GetValue(report, null);
if (entity == null)
{
    //How do I go about creating a new List<Officer> here?
}

Answer 1

Give this a whirl:

Report report = new Report();

PropertyInfo propertyInfo = report.GetType().GetProperty("Officer");
object entity = propertyInfo.GetValue(report, null);
if (entity == null)
{
    Type type = propertyInfo.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments()[0];
    Type listType = typeof(List<>).MakeGenericType(type);

    var instance = Activator.CreateInstance(listType);

    propertyInfo.SetValue(...);
}