Get name of property as a string

Question

See below solution I created using the answer I accepted  I m trying to improve the maintainability of some code involving reflection  The app has a  NET Remoting interface exposing  among other things  a method called Execute for accessing parts of the app not included in its published remote interface  Here is how the app designates properties  a static one in this example  which are meant to be accessible via Execute  RemoteMgr ExposeProperty  quot SomeSecret quot   typeof SomeClass    quot SomeProperty quot     So a remote user could call  string response   remoteObject Execute  quot SomeSecret quot     and the app would use reflection to find SomeClass SomeProperty and return its value as a string  Unfortunately  if someone renames SomeProperty and forgets to change the 3rd parm of ExposeProperty    it breaks this mechanism  I need to the equivalent of  SomeClass SomeProperty GetTheNameOfThisPropertyAsAString    to use as the 3rd parm in ExposeProperty so refactoring tools would take care of renames  Is there a way to do this  Okay  here s what I ended up creating  based upon the answer I selected and the question he referenced       lt summary gt     Get the name of a static or instance property from a property access lambda      lt  summary gt      lt typeparam name  quot T quot  gt Type of the property lt  typeparam gt      lt param name  quot propertyLambda quot  gt lambda expression of the form        gt  Class Property  or       gt  object Property  lt  param gt      lt returns gt The name of the property lt  returns gt  public string GetPropertyName lt T gt  Expression lt Func lt T gt  gt  propertyLambda        var me   propertyLambda Body as MemberExpression       if  me    null                throw new ArgumentException  quot You must pass a lambda of the form        gt  Class Property  or       gt  object Property  quot               return me Member Name      Usage     Static Property string name   GetPropertyName      gt  SomeClass SomeProperty       Instance Property string name   GetPropertyName      gt  someObject SomeProperty    Now with this cool capability  it s time to simplify the ExposeProperty method  Polishing doorknobs is dangerous work

User · Answer

The PropertyInfo class should help you achieve this, if I understand correctly.

Type.GetProperties() method

PropertyInfo[] propInfos = typeof(ReflectedType).GetProperties();
propInfos.ToList().ForEach(p => 
    Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Property name: {0}", p.Name));

Is this what you need?

User · Answer

I modified your solution to chain over multiple properties   public static string GetPropertyName lt T gt  Expression lt Func lt T gt  gt  propertyLambda        MemberExpression me   propertyLambda Body as MemberExpression      if  me    null                throw new ArgumentException  You must pass a lambda of the form        gt  Class Property  or       gt  object Property                string result   string Empty      do               result   me Member Name         result          me   me Expression as MemberExpression        while  me    null        result   result Remove result Length - 1      remove the trailing         return result      Usage   string name   GetPropertyName      gt  someObject SomeProperty SomeOtherProperty      returns  SomeProperty SomeOtherProperty

User · Answer

it s how I implemented it   the reason behind is if the class that you want to get the name from it s member is not static then you need to create an instanse of that and then get the member s name  so generic here comes to help  public static string GetName lt TClass gt  Expression lt Func lt TClass  object gt  gt  exp        MemberExpression body   exp Body as MemberExpression       if  body    null                 UnaryExpression ubody    UnaryExpression exp Body           body   ubody Operand as MemberExpression              return body Member Name      the usage is like this   var label   ClassExtension GetName lt SomeClass gt  x   gt  x Label     x is refering to  SomeClass

User · Answer

Old question  but another answer to this question is to create a static function in a helper class that uses the CallerMemberNameAttribute   public static string GetPropertyName  CallerMemberName  String propertyName   null      return propertyName      And then use it like   public string MyProperty     get   Console WriteLine   0  was called   GetPropertyName     return  myProperty

User · Answer

You can use the StackTrace class to get the name of the current function   or if you put the code in a function  then step down a level and get the calling function    See http   msdn microsoft com en-us library system diagnostics stacktrace VS 71  aspx

User · Answer

You can use Reflection to obtain the actual names of the properties   http   www csharp-examples net reflection-property-names   If you need a way to assign a  String Name  to a property  why don t you write an attribute that you can reflect over to get the string name    StringName  MyStringName    private string MyProperty       get

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I ve been using this answer to great effect  Get the property  as a string  from an Expression lt Func lt TModel TProperty gt  gt   I realize I already answered this question a while back  The only advantage my other answer has is that it works for static properties  I find the syntax in this answer much more useful because you don t have to create a variable of the type you want to reflect

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Based on the answer which is already in the question and on this article  https   handcraftsman wordpress com 2008 11 11 how-to-get-c-property-names-without-magic-strings  I am presenting my solution to this problem   public static class PropertyNameHelper            lt summary gt          A static method to get the Propertyname String of a Property         It eliminates the need for  Magic Strings  and assures type safety when renaming properties          See  http   stackoverflow com questions 2820660 get-name-of-property-as-a-string          lt  summary gt           lt example gt             Static Property         string name   PropertyNameHelper GetPropertyName      gt  SomeClass SomeProperty              Instance Property         string name   PropertyNameHelper GetPropertyName      gt  someObject SomeProperty            lt  example gt           lt typeparam name  T  gt  lt  typeparam gt           lt param name  propertyLambda  gt  lt  param gt           lt returns gt  lt  returns gt      public static string GetPropertyName lt T gt  Expression lt Func lt T gt  gt  propertyLambda                var me   propertyLambda Body as MemberExpression           if  me    null                        throw new ArgumentException  You must pass a lambda of the form        gt  Class Property  or       gt  object Property                        return me Member Name                 lt summary gt          Another way to get Instance Property names as strings          With this method you don t need to create a instance first          See the example          See  https   handcraftsman wordpress com 2008 11 11 how-to-get-c-property-names-without-magic-strings           lt  summary gt           lt example gt          string name   PropertyNameHelper  Firma f    gt  f Firmenumsatz Waehrung            lt  example gt           lt typeparam name  T  gt  lt  typeparam gt           lt typeparam name  TReturn  gt  lt  typeparam gt           lt param name  expression  gt  lt  param gt           lt returns gt  lt  returns gt      public static string GetPropertyName lt T  TReturn gt  Expression lt Func lt T  TReturn gt  gt  expression                MemberExpression body    MemberExpression expression Body          return body Member Name            And a Test which also shows the usage for instance and static properties    TestClass  public class PropertyNameHelperTest       private class TestClass               public static string StaticString   get  set            public string InstanceString   get  set                TestMethod      public void TestGetPropertyName                 Assert AreEqual  StaticString   PropertyNameHelper GetPropertyName      gt  TestClass StaticString             Assert AreEqual  InstanceString   PropertyNameHelper GetPropertyName  TestClass t    gt  t InstanceString

User · Answer

With C  6 0  this is now a non-issue as you can do   nameof SomeProperty    This expression is resolved at compile-time to  SomeProperty    MSDN documentation of nameof

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There s a well-known hack to extract it from lambda expression  this is from the PropertyObserver class  by Josh Smith  in his MVVM foundation        private static string GetPropertyName lt TPropertySource gt           Expression lt Func lt TPropertySource  object gt  gt  expression                var lambda   expression as LambdaExpression          MemberExpression memberExpression          if  lambda Body is UnaryExpression                        var unaryExpression   lambda Body as UnaryExpression              memberExpression   unaryExpression Operand as MemberExpression                    else                       memberExpression   lambda Body as MemberExpression                     Debug Assert memberExpression    null               Please provide a lambda expression like  n   gt  n PropertyName              if  memberExpression    null                        var propertyInfo   memberExpression Member as PropertyInfo               return propertyInfo Name                     return null            Sorry  this was missing some context   This was part of a larger class where TPropertySource is the class containing the property   You could make the function generic in TPropertySource to extract it from the class   I recommend taking a look at the full code from the MVVM Foundation

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Using GetMemberInfo from here  Retrieving Property name from lambda expression you can do something like this   RemoteMgr ExposeProperty      gt  SomeClass SomeProperty   public class SomeClass       public static string SomeProperty               get   return  Foo              public class RemoteMgr       public static void ExposeProperty lt T gt  Expression lt Func lt T gt  gt  property                var expression   GetMemberInfo property           string path   string Concat expression Member DeclaringType FullName                   expression Member Name              Do ExposeProperty work here             public class Program       public static void Main                 RemoteMgr ExposeProperty  SomeSecret        gt  SomeClass SomeProperty

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Okay  here s what I ended up creating  based upon the answer I selected and the question he referenced        lt summary gt     Get the name of a static or instance property from a property access lambda      lt  summary gt      lt typeparam name  T  gt Type of the property lt  typeparam gt      lt param name  propertyLambda  gt lambda expression of the form        gt  Class Property  or       gt  object Property  lt  param gt      lt returns gt The name of the property lt  returns gt   public string GetPropertyName lt T gt  Expression lt Func lt T gt  gt  propertyLambda        var me   propertyLambda Body as MemberExpression       if  me    null                throw new ArgumentException  You must pass a lambda of the form        gt  Class Property  or       gt  object Property                return me Member Name       Usage      Static Property string name   GetPropertyName      gt  SomeClass SomeProperty       Instance Property string name   GetPropertyName      gt  someObject SomeProperty

User · Answer

I had some difficulty using the solutions already suggested for my specific use case  but figured it out eventually  I don t think my specific case is worthy of a new question  so I am posting my solution here for reference   This is very closely related to the question and provides a solution for anyone else with a similar case to mine    The code I ended up with looks like this   public class HideableControl lt T gt   Control where T  class       private string  propertyName      private PropertyInfo  propertyInfo       public string PropertyName               get   return  propertyName            set                        propertyName   value               propertyInfo   typeof T  GetProperty value                        protected override bool GetIsVisible IRenderContext context                if   propertyInfo    null              return false           var model   context Get lt T gt              if  model    null              return false           return  bool  propertyInfo GetValue model  null              protected void SetIsVisibleProperty Expression lt Func lt T  bool gt  gt  propertyLambda                var expression   propertyLambda Body as MemberExpression          if  expression    null              throw new ArgumentException  You must pass a lambda of the form   vm   gt  vm Property              PropertyName   expression Member Name           public interface ICompanyViewModel       string CompanyName   get        bool IsVisible   get       public class CompanyControl  HideableControl lt ICompanyViewModel gt        public CompanyControl                 SetIsVisibleProperty vm   gt  vm IsVisible             The important part for me is that in the CompanyControl class the compiler will only allow me to choose a boolean property of ICompanyViewModel which makes it easier for other developers to get it right   The main difference between my solution and the accepted answer is that my class is generic and I only want to match properties from the generic type that are boolean

[c#] Get name of property as a string

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