How do I use reflection to invoke a private method

Question

There are a group of private methods in my class, and I need to call one dynamically based on an input value. Both the invoking code and the target methods are in the same instance. The code looks like this:

MethodInfo dynMethod = this.GetType().GetMethod("Draw_" + itemType);
dynMethod.Invoke(this, new object[] { methodParams });

In this case, GetMethod() will not return private methods. What BindingFlags do I need to supply to GetMethod() so that it can locate private methods?

Answer 1

Simply change your code to use the overloaded version of GetMethod that accepts BindingFlags:

MethodInfo dynMethod = this.GetType().GetMethod("Draw_" + itemType, 
    BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
dynMethod.Invoke(this, new object[] { methodParams });

Here's the BindingFlags enumeration documentation.

Answer 2

And if you really want to get yourself in trouble, make it easier to execute by writing an extension method:

static class AccessExtensions
{
    public static object call(this object o, string methodName, params object[] args)
    {
        var mi = o.GetType ().GetMethod (methodName, System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance );
        if (mi != null) {
            return mi.Invoke (o, args);
        }
        return null;
    }
}

And usage:

    class Counter
    {
        public int count { get; private set; }
        void incr(int value) { count += value; }
    }

    [Test]
    public void making_questionable_life_choices()
    {
        Counter c = new Counter ();
        c.call ("incr", 2);             // "incr" is private !
        c.call ("incr", 3);
        Assert.AreEqual (5, c.count);
    }

Answer 3

Invokes any method despite its protection level on object instance. Enjoy!

public static object InvokeMethod(object obj, string methodName, params object[] methodParams)
{
    var methodParamTypes = methodParams?.Select(p => p.GetType()).ToArray() ?? new Type[] { };
    var bindingFlags = BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Static;
    MethodInfo method = null;
    var type = obj.GetType();
    while (method == null && type != null)
    {
        method = type.GetMethod(methodName, bindingFlags, Type.DefaultBinder, methodParamTypes, null);
        type = type.BaseType;
    }

    return method?.Invoke(obj, methodParams);
}

Answer 4

Microsoft recently modified the reflection API rendering most of these answers obsolete. The following should work on modern platforms (including Xamarin.Forms and UWP):

obj.GetType().GetTypeInfo().GetDeclaredMethod("MethodName").Invoke(obj, yourArgsHere);

Or as an extension method:

public static object InvokeMethod<T>(this T obj, string methodName, params object[] args)
{
    var type = typeof(T);
    var method = type.GetTypeInfo().GetDeclaredMethod(methodName);
    return method.Invoke(obj, args);
}

Note:

• If the desired method is in a superclass of obj the T generic must be explicitly set to the type of the superclass.

• If the method is asynchronous you can use await (Task) obj.InvokeMethod(…).

Answer 5

Read this (supplementary) answer (that is sometimes the answer) to understand where this is going and why some people in this thread complain that "it is still not working"

I wrote exactly same code as one of the answers here. But I still had an issue. I placed break point on

var mi = o.GetType().GetMethod(methodName, BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance );

It executed but mi == null

And it continued behavior like this until I did "re-build" on all projects involved. I was unit testing one assembly while the reflection method was sitting in third assembly. It was totally confusing but I used Immediate Window to discover methods and I found that a private method I tried to unit test had old name (I renamed it). This told me that old assembly or PDB is still out there even if unit test project builds - for some reason project it tests didn't built. "rebuild" worked

Answer 6

BindingFlags.NonPublic will not return any results by itself. As it turns out, combining it with BindingFlags.Instance does the trick.

MethodInfo dynMethod = this.GetType().GetMethod("Draw_" + itemType, 
    BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);