How to identify derived classes that is going to affect when base class is modified

Question

If I modified base class, how can I know that which derived classes are affected. To elaborate more, for example, I have two base classes named Class A and Class B. I have Class X and Class Y inheriting from Class A, and Class Z inherits from Class B. Here in this case scenario, I have only 2 base class and 3 derived classes and it is manageable to see how they are interrelated. What if I have so many derived classes with so many base classes in real world enterprise application. How can I identify which classes are going to affect when I change base class. Thank.

Answer 1

In Visual Studio you would right click on the thing you want to change and in the popup menu select either View all references or View call hierarchy .

If you want to do it yourself in code you would use reflection for example as described in Discovering derived types using reflection .