Question

Say that you’ve got IList or List as a property. How do you work out that it is a List, or an IList? Can this be done without relying on trial and error?

The name of the type tends to be something like List`1. Is it reasonable to consider a string hack?

class Program {

    public class Class1 {
        public int a { get; set; }

        public IList<int> list { get; set; }


        public List<int> concreteList { get; set; }
    }

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Test1();
        Test2();
    }

    private static void Test1()
    {
        var t = typeof (Class1);
        var p = t.GetProperty("list");

        if (p.PropertyType.IsInterface && p.PropertyType.IsGenericType)
        {
            var ps = p.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments();
            var underlying = p.PropertyType.GetInterface("IList");

            var b = underlying == typeof (IList<>);

        }
    }

    private static void Test2() {
        var t = typeof(Class1);
        var p = t.GetProperty("concreteList");

        if (!p.PropertyType.IsInterface && p.PropertyType.IsGenericType) {
            var ps = p.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments();

            var underlying3 = p.PropertyType.GetGenericTypeDefinition();

            var b = underlying3 == typeof (List<>);
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

If you can get the property value then testing for its type can be quite straight-forward (see Guffa’s answer). However, if you want to find it out without invoking the property then your code is almost there – for example,

var t = p.PropertyType;
if (t.IsGenericType && !t.IsGenericTypeDefinition && !t.IsInterface && !t.IsValueType) 
{
   // we are dealing with closed generic classes 
   var typeToTest = typeof (List<>);
   var tToCheck = t.GetGenericTypeDefinition();
   while (tToCheck != typeof(object)) 
   {
      if (tToCheck == typeToTest) 
      {
         // the given type is indeed derived from List<T>
         break; 
      }
      tToCheck = toCheck.BaseType;
   }
}

IsGenericType indicates that the type is generic – can be open (List<T>) or closed (List<int>). IsGenericTypeDefinition indicates if the generic type is an open type or not. GetGenericTypeDefinition on closed/open generic type will return the generic definition (i.e. the open generic type).