I have a class with constant strings in it. I'd like to throw all of those strings into a drop down collection. What is the best way to do this? This is what I have now and in theory, I would think that it would be the best way to do this.
public class TestClass
{
private const string _testA = "Test A";
private const string _testB = "Test B";
public string TestA
{
get { return _testA; }
}
public string TestB
{
get { return _testB; }
}
}
public DropDownItemCollection TestCollection
{
DropDownItemCollection collection = new DropDownItemCollection();
TestClass class = new TestClass();
foreach (string testString in class)
{
DropDownItem item = new DropDownItem();
item.Description = testString;
item.Value = testString;
collection.Add(item);
}
return collection;
}
The problem is that this returns an error on the foreach: "...does not contain a public definition for GetEnumerator." I've tried to create a GetEnumerator but I've been unsuccessful and I haven't worked with GetEnumerator in the past.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
You could use reflection to loop through all the properties:
public DropDownItemCollection TestCollection
{
var collection = new DropDownItemCollection();
var instance = new TestClass();
foreach (var prop in typeof(TestClass).GetProperties())
{
if (prop.CanRead)
{
var value = prop.GetValue(instance, null) as string;
var item = new DropDownItem();
item.Description = value;
item.Value = value;
collection.Add(item);
}
}
return collection;
}
A little late but wouldn't this be a better solution?
http://weblogs.asp.net/whaggard/archive/2003/02/20/2708.aspx
private FieldInfo[] GetConstants(System.Type type)
{
ArrayList constants = new ArrayList();
FieldInfo[] fieldInfos = type.GetFields(
// Gets all public and static fields
BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static |
// This tells it to get the fields from all base types as well
BindingFlags.FlattenHierarchy);
// Go through the list and only pick out the constants
foreach(FieldInfo fi in fieldInfos)
// IsLiteral determines if its value is written at
// compile time and not changeable
// IsInitOnly determine if the field can be set
// in the body of the constructor
// for C# a field which is readonly keyword would have both true
// but a const field would have only IsLiteral equal to true
if(fi.IsLiteral && !fi.IsInitOnly)
constants.Add(fi);
// Return an array of FieldInfos
return (FieldInfo[])constants.ToArray(typeof(FieldInfo));
}
If you need the names you can do
fi.GetValue(null)
inside the loop.
You could implement a method that yields the strings:
public Ienumerable<string> GetStrings(){
yield return TestA;
yield return TestB;
}
Else you should look into reflection to return the properties that are static and string and then get the values by calling them.
Regards GJ
I just had the same challenge; to get all constants of my class (not properties!). Based on the most popular answer (for properties) and John's answer (for constants) I wrote this. I tested it and it works well.
private List<string> lstOfConstants= new List<string>();
foreach (var constant in typeof(TestClass).GetFields())
{
if (constant.IsLiteral && !constant.IsInitOnly)
{
lstOfConstants.Add((string)constant.GetValue(null));
}
}
You can use reflection to loop trought the class properties:
var instance = new TestClass();
foreach(PropertyInfo pi in typeof(TestClass))
{
var val = pi.GetValue(instance,null);
}
You need to use reflection to get name of each String from your custom type, and then also/optionally get the value of each one of those Strings...
Something like this:
TestClass theClass = new TestClass();
foreach (PropertyInfo property in theClass.GetType().GetProperties())
{
Console.WriteLine(property.Name);
Console.WriteLine(property.GetValue(theClass, null));
}