Question

I’m looking for a set of classes (preferably in the .net framework) that will parse C# code and return a list of functions with parameters, classes with their methods, properties etc. Ideally it would provide all that’s needed to build my own intellisense.

I have a feeling something like this should be in the .net framework, given all the reflection stuff they offer, but if not then an open source alternative is good enough.

What I’m trying to build is basically something like Snippet Compiler, but with a twist. I’m trying to figure out how to get the code dom first.

I tried googling for this but I’m not sure what the correct term for this is so I came up empty.

Edit: Since I’m looking to use this for intellisense-like processing, actually compiling the code won’t work since it will most likely be incomplete. Sorry I should have mentioned that first.

Answer 1

While .NET’s CodeDom namespace provides the basic API for code language parsers, they are not implemented. Visual Studio does this through its own language services. These are not available in the redistributable framework.

You could either…

1. Compile the code then use reflection on the resulting assembly
2. Look at something like the Mono C# compiler which creates these syntax trees. It won’t be a high-level API like CodeDom but maybe you can work with it.

There may be something on CodePlex or a similar site.

UPDATE
See this related post. Parser for C#