Get the value of a static property from a System.Type

Question

I have the situation that I am trying to access a static property that contains a singleton to an object that I wish to retrieve only by knowing its type. I have an implementation but it seems cumbersome...

public interface IFace
{
    void Start()
}

public class Container
{
    public IFace SelectedValue;
    public Type SelectedType;
    public void Start()
    {
        SelectedValue =  (IFace)SelectedType.
                         GetProperty("Instance", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public).
                         GetGetMethod().Invoke(null,null);
        SelectedValue.Start();
    }
}

Is there other way to do the above? Access a public static property using a System.Type ?

Thanks

Answer 1

You can simplify it slightly by calling PropertyInfo.GetValue instead:

SelectedValue = (IFace)SelectedType
   .GetProperty("Instance", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public)
   .GetValue(null, null);

As of .NET 4.5 you could call GetValue(null) as an overload has been added which doesn't have the parameter for indexer parameters (if you see what I mean).

At this point it's about as simple as reflection gets. As David Arno says in comments, you should quite possibly revisit the design instead.