Question

I’m trying to make a model reflection tool. I have come a long way so far but now i’m stuck.

I have this

public static void RenderModelList(List<T> modelList)
{
   foreach (T model in modelList)
   {
      PropertyInfo[] properties = model.GetType().GetProperties();
      foreach (PropertyInfo property in properties)
      {
         object propValue = property.GetValue(model, null);
         //Check if the property is a collection and do recursion 
         if (propValue != null)
         {
            if (isCollection(propValue))
            {   
               //This only works for Lists of the same <T> 
               List<T> li = Convert.ChangeType(propValue, propValue.GetType()) as List<T>;
               if (li != null)
               {
                  if (li.Count > 0)
                  {
                     RenderModelList(li, loop);
                  }                                            
               }
               else
               {
                  //Its another type what to do?
                  // Create a List<> of unknown type??         
               }
            }
         }
      }
   }
}

My problem is that if I pass this method a List<Persons> and the Person has a property which is a List<Cars> – I can’t use Convert.ChangeType – because this is not the T.

So how do I loop thrugh a “List” and get access to the properties of this object ?

Answer 1

It seems to me that your method can be a lot more loosely typed:

public static void RenderModelList(IEnumerable list)
{
    foreach (object model in list)
    {
        ...
    }
}

Then you just need to cast to IEnumerable, not a specific sequence or list type.