One of my favorite features in reflection is the ability to know about the properties of a certain instance at runtime. This has helped a lot in making tools to aid game development.

Basics

The following code is the simplest way to iterate through the properties of an instance:

// Let's say there's some instance named myInstance Type type = typeof(myInstance); // Get the properties that are public and not static PropertyInfo[] properties = type.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance); foreach(PropertyInfo property in properties) { // Do something with property... }

PropertyInfo contains the information about a property. You can get its getter and setter methods. You can invoke them. You can get its return type. You can query the attributes attached to the property. You will know a lot (just head over to its API reference).

Example Usage

One utility class that I’ve made is a generic XML writer and loader that can accept any instance and write the instance’s public properties to an XML. This way, I don’t have to make a custom XML writer code for each type of data. I can just use this class and tell it to write the instance.

I don’t write all public properties. I only select those with public getter and setter. The following is a utility method if such property is meant to be written:

public static bool IsVariableProperty(PropertyInfo property) { // should be writable and readable if(!(property.CanRead && property.CanWrite)) { return false; } // methods should be public MethodInfo getMethod = property.GetGetMethod(false); if(getMethod == null) { return false; } MethodInfo setMethod = property.GetSetMethod(false); if(setMethod == null) { return false; } return true; }

This is how I built the writer class (showing only the important parts):

class InstanceWriter { private readonly Type type; private PropertyInfo[] properties; // A common delegate for writing a property of each type private delegate void PropertyWriter(XmlWriter writer, PropertyInfo property, object instance); private Dictionary<Type, PropertyWriter> attributeWriterMap = new Dictionary<Type, PropertyWriter>(); // Constructor public InstanceWriter(Type type) { this.type = type; this.properties = this.type.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance); // Cached // Populate map of writers this.attributeWriterMap[typeof(string)] = WriteAsAttribute; this.attributeWriterMap[typeof(int)] = WriteAsAttribute; this.attributeWriterMap[typeof(float)] = WriteAsAttribute; this.attributeWriterMap[typeof(bool)] = WriteAsAttribute; // ... More types can be added here if needed } // Writes the specified instance to the writer public void Write(XmlWriter writer, object instance) { writer.WriteStartElement(this.type.Name); // Traverse properties foreach (PropertyInfo property in this.properties) { if (!TypeUtils.IsVariableProperty(property)) { // Not a candidate to be written continue; } // Must have a writer PropertyWriter propWriter = null; if (this.attributeWriterMap.TryGetValue(property.PropertyType, out propWriter)) { // Invokes the property writer propWriter(writer, property, instance); } } writer.WriteEndElement(); } // Writer methods. There are more of these to support the types you need to support. private static void WriteAsAttribute(XmlWriter writer, PropertyInfo property, object instance) { // Invoking the getter using reflection object value = property.GetGetMethod().Invoke(instance, null); if (value != null) { writer.WriteAttributeString(property.Name, value.ToString()); } } }

This class just maintains a dictionary of writer methods mapped by Type. During traversal of properties, it checks if a property needs to be written and that it has a mapped writer method. PropertyInfo.PropertyType was used to get the type of the property. It then proceeds to invoke that writer method which writes the value to the XmlWriter.

The actual class is more elaborate than this. There’s a separate map for property writers that needs child elements. For example, Vector3 needs a child element and its xyz values are stored as attributes. We also took it further by checking if the property implements a custom interface of ours named IXmlSerializable and invokes the writer method of that property.

This is then how it is used:

InstanceWriter writer = new InstanceWriter(typeof(MyClass)); writer.Write(xmlWriter, myClassInstance); // Writes a whole element representing MyClass

My XmlLoader was made using the same concept only that the mapped methods now invoke the setter of the property. This is one of the loader methods:

private static void LoadString(SimpleXmlNode node, PropertyInfo property, object instance) { if(!node.HasAttribute(property.Name)) { // No value from XML. Set a default value. SetDefault(property, instance); return; } string value = node.GetAttribute(property.Name); property.GetSetMethod().Invoke(instance, new object[] { value }); }

Other Uses

I’ve made a generic data Unity editor that can support any type of data class as long as they expose the editable variables in the form of properties. As you can see in my other posts, most of our data editors have the same look. That’s because we are using the same base code for the editor and provide the custom rendering when necessary.

In part 1 of this series where I talked about loading instances from mere string, we are also using properties manipulation to expose the variables of such instances in the editor. The following is a screenshot from our GOAP data editor.

All of these are possible because of reflection.