Question

Ok, I have the following structure. Basically a plugin architecture

// assembly 1 - Base Class which contains the contract public class BaseEntity {   public string MyName() {     // figure out the name of the deriving class     // perhaps via reflection   } }  // assembly 2 - contains plugins based on the Base Class public class BlueEntity : BaseEntity {} public class YellowEntity : BaseEntity {} public class GreenEntity : BaseEntity {}   // main console app List<BaseEntity> plugins = Factory.GetMePluginList();  foreach (BaseEntity be in plugins) {   Console.WriteLine(be.MyName); } 

I’d like the statement

be.MyName 

to tell me whether the object is BlueEntity, YellowEntity or GreenEntity. The important thing is that the MyName property should be in the base class, because I don’t want to reimplement the property in every plugin.

Is this possible in C#?

Answer 1

I think you can do it through GetType:

public class BaseEntity {     public string MyName() {         return this.GetType().Name     } }