Question

When I foreach through an object’s properties and end up with a PropertyInfo, how can I access the actual property of the object?

@foreach(var propertyInfo in Model.Entity.GetType().GetProperties()) {
    if (propertyInfo.PropertyType != typeof(string) &&
        propertyInfo.PropertyType.GetInterface(typeof(IEnumerable<>).Name) != null) {
        <div>
            @foreach(var item in propertyInfo/*Need Actual Property Here*/) {
                @Html.Action("Edit", new { Id = item.Id, typeName = "Item" });
            }
        </div>;
    }
}

Answer 1

Well, you need an instance to call it on – presumably that’s Model.Entity in this case. You need the GetValue method. However, it’s going to be quite tricky – because you need two things:

• You need the value to be iterable by foreach
• You need each item to have an Id property.

If you’re using C# 4 and .NET 4, you can use dynamic typing to make it a bit simpler:

IEnumerable values = (IEnumerable) propertyInfo.GetValue(Model.Entity, null);
@foreach(dynamic item in values) {
    @Html.Action("Edit", new { Id = item.Id, typeName = "Item" });
}

Or even:

dynamic values = propertyInfo.GetValue(Model.Entity, null);
@foreach(dynamic item in values) {
    @Html.Action("Edit", new { Id = item.Id, typeName = "Item" });
}