Get Values From Complex Class Using Reflection

c#, reflection, xml

Solution

You are trying to type cast a complex values type to string value so you lost the data. Instead use following code:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Person person = new Person();
        person.Name = "Person One";
        person.Location = "India";
        person.Emails = new PersonEmails();
        person.Phones = new PersonPhones();
        person.Emails.Emails = new PersonEmail[] { new PersonEmail() { Type = "Official", Value = "xyz@official.com" }, new PersonEmail() { Type = "Personal", Value = "xyz@personal.com" } };
        person.Phones.Phones = new PersonPhone[] { new PersonPhone() { Type = "Official", Value = "789-456-1230" }, new PersonPhone() { Type = "Personal", Value = "123-456-7890" } };

        List<ObjectField> fields = new List<ObjectField>();

        fields = GetPropertyValues(person);

    }

    static List<ObjectField> GetPropertyValues(object obj)
    {
        List<ObjectField> propList = new List<ObjectField>();

        foreach (PropertyInfo pinfo in obj.GetType().GetProperties())
        {
            var value = pinfo.GetValue(obj, null);

            if (pinfo.PropertyType.IsArray)
            {
                var arr = value as object[];
                for (var i = 0; i < arr.Length; i++)
                {
                    if (arr[i].GetType().IsPrimitive)
                    {
                        propList.Add(new ObjectField() { Name = pinfo.Name + i.ToString(), Value = arr[i].ToString() });
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        var lst = GetPropertyValues(arr[i]);
                        if (lst != null && lst.Count > 0)
                            propList.AddRange(lst);
                    }
                }
            }
            else
            {
                if (pinfo.PropertyType.IsPrimitive || value.GetType() == typeof(string))
                {
                    propList.Add(new ObjectField() { Name = pinfo.Name, Value = value.ToString() });
                }
                else
                {
                    var lst = GetPropertyValues(value);
                    if (lst != null && lst.Count > 0)
                        propList.AddRange(lst);
                }
            }
        }
        return propList;
    }
}

Problem

I have a class, which is created and populated from an xml string, I've simplified it for example purposes: ``` [XmlRoot("Person")] public sealed class Person { [XmlElement("Name")] public string Name { get; set; } [XmlElement("Location")] public string Location { get; set; } [XmlElement("Emails", Type = typeof(PersonEmails)] public PersonEmails Emails { get; set; } } public class PersonEmails { [XmlElement("Email", Type = typeof(PersonEmail))] public PersonEmail[] Emails { get; set; } } public class PersonEmail { [XmlAttribute("Type")] public string Type { get; set; } [XmlText] public string Value { get; set; } } ``` To extract the information, I'm trying to load them into another class, which is simply: ``` public class TransferObject { public string Name { get; set; } public ObjectField[] Fields { get; set; } } public class ObjectField { public string Name { get; set; } public string Value { get; set; } } ``` I'm only populating "Fields" from the other object, which would simply be (Name = "Location", Value = "London"), but for Emails, (Name = "Email"+Type, Value = jeff@here.com) Currently I can populate all the other fields, but I'm stuck with Emails, and knowing how to dig deep enough to be able to use reflection (or not) to get the information I need. Currently I'm using: ``` Person person = Person.FromXmlString(xmlString); List<ObjectField> fields = new List<ObjectField>(); foreach (PropertyInfo pinfo in person.getType().GetProperties() { fields.Add(new ObjectField { Name = pinfo.Name, Value = pinfo.getValue(person, null).ToString(); } ``` How can I expand on the above to add all my emails to the list?

Original source