Reflector

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Introduction

Reflector acts as a class browser of an assembly whether it may be an executable or any DLL. Here in the Reflector, we can see how to rive an assembly using Reflection in .NET.

OverView

This code uses FieldInfo to get the fields (what we call data members in C#) using GetFields(BindingFlags), PropertyInfo to get the properties (to get or set the fields) using GetProperties(BindingFlags), MethodInfo to the methods that work on the data using GetMethods(BindingFlags) and ParameterInfo to get the parameters that are passed using GetParameters().

CodeListing

To load an assembly:

assembly = Assembly.LoadFrom(this.assemblyName);

To Load all the types in an assembly:

/// <summary>
/// Loads all the types contained in the loaded assembly
/// </summary>
/// <returns></returns>
public ArrayList LoadAllTypes()
{   
 AssemblyTypeDetails typeDetails = null;
 try
 {    
  Type []types = assembly.GetExportedTypes();    
  typeDetails = null;
  typeList = new ArrayList();
  foreach(Type type in types)
  {
   typeDetails = new AssemblyTypeDetails();
   typeDetails.TypeFullName = type.FullName;
   typeDetails.TypeName = type.Name;
   typeList.Add(typeDetails);
  }
 }
 catch(Exception ex)
 {
  throw new Exception(ex.StackTrace);
 }
 finally
 {
  typeDetails = null;    
 }
 return typeList;
}

To Load Fields:

/// <summary>
/// returns an arraylist of the fields in the type 
/// </summary>
/// <param name="typeDetails">typeDetails</param>
/// <returns>array list of the fields</returns>
public ArrayList GetFields(AssemblyTypeDetails typeDetails)
{ 
 ArrayList fields = null;
 try
 {
  fields = new ArrayList();
  Type type = assembly.GetType(typeDetails.TypeFullName, true, true);
  if(type != null)
  {
   foreach(FieldInfo field in type.GetFields(BindingFlags.Public 
   | BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Static
   |BindingFlags.NonPublic |BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly))
     {
   fields.Add(field.Name.ToString()
   +" : "+field.Attributes.ToString()
   +" ["+field.FieldType.FullName+"]");
  }
 }    
 }
 catch(Exception ex)
 {
  throw new Exception(ex.Message);
 }
 return fields;
}

To Load Properties:

/// <summary>
  /// Returns an arraylist of the properties
  /// </summary>
  /// <param name="typeDetails">typeDetails</param>
  /// <returns>arraylist of the properties</returns>
  public ArrayList GetProperties(AssemblyTypeDetails typeDetails)
  { 
   ArrayList props = null;
   try
   {
    props = new ArrayList();
    Type type = assembly.GetType(typeDetails.TypeFullName, true, true);
    if(type != null)
    {
     foreach(PropertyInfo prop in type.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public 
      | BindingFlags.Instance
      | BindingFlags.Static 
      | BindingFlags.NonPublic
      |BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly))
     {
      props.Add(prop.Name.ToString()
       +" : "+prop.PropertyType.Name);
       
     }
    }    
   }
   catch(Exception ex)
   {
    throw new Exception(ex.Message);
   }
   return props;
  }