Get all implementations types of a generic interface

Question

I'm trying to get all the implementations of IEntityModelBuilder with the following code, but instead it returns an empty collection.

public class EntityFrameworkDbContext : DbContext
{
    //constructor(s) and entities DbSets...

    private static IEnumerable<IEntityModelBuilder<IEntity>> _entitymodelBuilders;
    internal IEnumerable<IEntityModelBuilder<IEntity>> EntityModelBuilders
    {
        get
        {
            if (_entitymodelBuilders == null)
            {
                var type = typeof(IEntityModelBuilder<IEntity>);

                _entitymodelBuilders = Assembly.GetAssembly(type).GetTypes()
                    .Where(t => type.IsAssignableFrom(t) && t.IsClass)
                    .Select(t => (IEntityModelBuilder<IEntity>)Activator.CreateInstance(t, new object[0]));
            }

            return _entitymodelBuilders;
        }
    }

    protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        foreach (var builder in EntityModelBuilders)
            builder.Build(modelBuilder);

        base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);
    }
}

internal interface IEntityModelBuilder<TEntity> where TEntity : IEntity
{
    void Build(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder);
}

//sample implementation
internal class UserModelBuilder : IEntityModelBuilder<User>
{
    public void Build(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        modelBuilder.Entity<User>()
            .ToTable("users")
            .HasKey(e => e.Id);

        modelBuilder.Entity<User>()
            .Property(e => e.Id)
            .HasColumnName("id");

        modelBuilder.Entity<User>()
            .Property(e => e.Email)
            .HasColumnName("email");

        //and so on...
    }
}

If I change the type with

var type = typeof(IEntityModelBuilder<User>);

the types fetching code runs fine and returns the expected UserModelBuilder. How can I do this with generics?

Answer 1

Although Slava's solution works, it isn't, in general, completely safe because of Contains . It is possible that some other interface/type could contain the name of the interface you are searching for. In this case, imagine you have another interface named IEntityModelBuilderHelper .

Also, with very little effort you can generalize this code to be much more poweful. Consider the following two methods:

public static IEnumerable<Type> GetAllTypes(Type genericType)
{
    if (!genericType.IsGenericTypeDefinition)
        throw new ArgumentException("Specified type must be a generic type definition.", nameof(genericType));

    return Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()
                   .GetTypes()
                   .Where(t => t.GetInterfaces()
                                .Any(i => i.IsGenericType &&
                                     i.GetGenericTypeDefinition().Equals(genericType)));
}

And,

public static IEnumerable<Type> GetAllTypes(Type genericType, params Type[] genericParameterTypes)
{
    if (!genericType.IsGenericTypeDefinition)
        throw new ArgumentException("Specified type must be a generic type definition.", nameof(genericType));

    return Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()
                   .GetTypes()
                   .Where(t => t.GetInterfaces()
                                .Any(i => i.IsGenericType &&
                                          i.GetGenericTypeDefinition().Equals(genericType) &&
                                          i.GetGenericArguments().Count() == genericParameterTypes.Length &&
                                          i.GetGenericArguments().Zip(genericParameterTypes, 
                                                                      (f, s) => s.IsAssignableFrom(f))
                                                                 .All(z => z)));
}

The former will give you all types that implement the supplied generic type definition , that is typeof(MyGenericType<>) , with no constrain whatsoever on the generic type parameter. The latter will do the same thing but with the supplied type constraints.

Consider the following types:

public interface IFoo<T> { }
public interface IEntity { }
public class A : IEntity { }

public class Foo : IFoo<IEntity> { }
public class FooA : IFoo<A> { }
public class FooS : IFoo<string> { }

var types = GetAllTypes(typeof(IFoo<>)); will return 3 types: { Foo, FooA, FooS } while var types = GetAllTypes(typeof(IFoo<>), typeof(IEntity)); will return only two types: { Foo, FooA } .

Answer 2

You can try working example .

Declarations:

public interface IEntity { }
public class Entity1 : IEntity { }
public class Entity2 : IEntity { }

public interface IEntityModelBuilder<out T> where T : IEntity { }

public class BaseClass1 : IEntityModelBuilder<Entity1>
{        
    public BaseClass1(int a) { }
}
public class BaseClass2 : IEntityModelBuilder<Entity2>
{
    public BaseClass2(int a) { }
}

Usage:

List<IEntityModelBuilder<IEntity>> objects = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes()
    .Where(x => x.GetInterfaces().Any(y => y.IsGenericType && && y.Name == "IEntityModelBuilder`1"))
    .Select(x => (IEntityModelBuilder<IEntity>)Activator.CreateInstance(x, new object[] { 0 })).ToList();