How to get a property name of a given type strongly typed?
.net, c#, expression-trees, reflection
Solution
You can rewrite your method to use it without creating an instance:
var prop = ReflectionHelper.PropertyName<Car>(x => x.Wheels);
because your don't use `obj` inside because you don't need it:
public static class ReflectionHelper
{
public static string PropertyName<T>(Expression<Func<T, object>> property) where T : class
{
MemberExpression body = (MemberExpression)property.Body;
return body.Member.Name;
}
}
Note that the return type doesn't have to be strongly-typed, it can be just `object`.
Problem
I would like to be able to retrieve the name of a property of a type using a strongly typed syntax. I already got a function to get a property name of an instance: ``` public static string PropertyName<T, TReturn>(this T obj, Expression<Func<T, TReturn>> property) where T : class { MemberExpression body = (MemberExpression) property.Body; if (body == null) throw new ArgumentException("The provided expression did not point to a property."); return body.Member.Name; } ``` Which can be called like this: ``` Car car = new Car(); car.PropertyName(x => x.Wheels) //returns "Wheels" ``` I'm trying to create another function that could support the following: ``` Type t = Typeof(Car); t.PropertyName(x => x.Wheels) //should return "Wheels" ``` Or just (even better!): ``` Car.PropertyName(x => x.Wheels) ``` How would I go about this?