Object Explorer

• Download source - 11 Kb
• Download example - 15 Kb

Introduction

In medium to large scale IT project you will end up with quite a lot of business logic objects. To test each one of them you generally create some kind of test window that will accept initial data, run some logic, and then display new object states. So we will have window with a nice [GO!] command button and a bunch of labels to display properties and fields of a business entity after processing, and a couple of dozens lines of boring code to copy data from object instance to these labels. If your object contains collection or other objects, your choices will be:

1. Test it in debugger.
2. Spend a working day or two just to create a decent test window.

In mine opinion, a programmer should be lazy enough to spend 9 hours 59 minutes to create tool that can do something that can be done manually in 10 hours, and than have 1 minute to enjoy while the magic happens.

Instead of making copy-paste functionality for each business entity we want to check, let's build a generic black box which can accept objects and display everything it has inside. Using reflection, there is no object we cannot disassemble!

Our Windows Control Library contains user control that you can use as part of your test window and a complete "Display object state" window. Object properties are presented in a ListView. You can double-click on any non-primitive field or property to display its state (drill down).

Feel free to use this code; it will be great if it will save you some boring coding time. As usual any suggestions will be appreciated.

Using the Code

• Add reference to the WindowsUtils assembly to your test project.
• Add the using case:

  using ClalBit.Infrastruct.WindowsUtils;
          

• Add the following wherever you want to display your object state:

  frmObjectProperties frm = new frmObjectProperties(objectToExplore, "ObjectName");
  frm.Show();
          

In case you want to create a more complicated test window, you can use the ObjectProperties control instead. Just drop it onto your form and call the SetObject method on it. See frmObjectProperties for an example.