WMI Proxy Class using System.Dynamic

KuRLiC

4.50/5 (2 votes)

Aug 30, 2012

CPOL

15461

163

A wrapper class to access WMI objects using dynamic variables

Introduction

The purpose of this tip is to provide an easy-to-use class to access the properties of a WMI object using dynamic C# variables.

Background

It's true that the ManagementObject class is already an easy-to-use object, but sometimes the need to access the properties of an object through indices or methods can be annoying. A developer wants to produce code in a faster and versatileway.

Thanks to the System.Dynamic.DynamicObject, a developer can access methods and properties without worrying about the real structure of the object.

So I created a simple wrapper class to access to the properties and methods of the WMI classes by calling them directly from the code without accessing explicitly using the ManagementObject class.

Using the Code

There are two way to use the code:

Using the result of a call to the static method Query (comfortable):

private static void ListServices()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Service list:");
            foreach (dynamic item in WmiClass.Query("select * from Win32_Service"))
            {
                Console.WriteLine("     {0}, InterrogateService result={1}", 
                item.Name, ((InterrogateServiceResult)item.InterrogateService()));
            }
        }

Creating an instance of the WmiClass wrapper using the constructor (faster with big results):

private static void FastListServices()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Another service list:");
            using (ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = 
            new ManagementObjectSearcher("select * from Win32_Service"))
            {
                foreach (ManagementObject obj in searcher.Get())
                {
                    using (dynamic service = new WmiClass(obj))
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("     {0}, InterrogateService result={1}", 
                        service.Name, ((InterrogateServiceResult)service.InterrogateService()));
                    }
                }
            }
        }