How to get property type for array class inner properties

Question

I have tried to get a property type for array properties

[Serializable]
public class Orders
{
    public long OrderID { get; set; }
    public string CustomerID { get; set; }
    public int EmployeeID { get; set; }
    public double Freight { get; set; }
    public string ShipCountry { get; set; }
    public string ShipCity { get; set; }
    public Customer[] customer {get; set;}
}

public class Customer
{
    public string OtherAddress { get; set; }
    public int CustNum { get; set; }

}

I need to get type of Orders.Customer.OtherAddress or Orders.Customer.0.OtherAddress index based. dataSource is the list of Orders.

Type type = dataSource.GetElementType();

PropertyInfo propInfo = type.GetProperty("Customer");

DefaultMemberAttribute defaultMember = 
(DefaultMemberAttribute)Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(propInfo.PropertyType, 
typeof(DefaultMemberAttribute));
                    propInfo = 
propInfo.PropertyType.GetProperty("CustNum" , new Type[] { 
typeof(int) });

How can i proceed ?

Answer 1

OP, your question isn't very clear.... "using dynamic datasource" could mean a lot of different things. However, whether the reference to your data source is a strongly typed object, a dynamic, or just an object, the object being referenced is still a strongly-typed class of some kind. Unless for some reason you can't set a reference to its type library, you should not need to use any reflection. At most a simple cast will do it. With a dynamic, that isn't even necessary.

For example, if you have this interface:

public interface IRepository
{
    dynamic GetListAsDynamic();
    object  GetListAsObject();
}

...and a class that implements it....

public class OrderRepository : IRepository
{
    public dynamic GetListAsDynamic()
    {
        return new List<Order>
        {
            new Order
            {
                customer = new [] {new Customer { OtherAddress = "1234 Foo St" } }
            }
        };
    }
    public object GetListAsObject()
    {
        return new List<Order>
        {
            new Order
            {
                customer = new [] {new Customer { OtherAddress = "1234 Bar St" } }
            }
        };
    }
}

You can still access the other address without any reflection:

public class Program
{
    public static void TestDynamic()
    {
        var repo = new OrderRepository();
        var orders = repo.GetListAsDynamic();
        var order = orders[0];
        var customers = order.customer;
        var customer = customers[0];

        Console.WriteLine("And the customer dynamic's other address is.... '{0}'", customer.OtherAddress);
    }

    public static void TestObject()
    {
        var repo = new OrderRepository();
        var orders = repo.GetListAsObject() as List<Order>;
        var order = orders[0];
        var customers = order.customer;
        var customer = customers[0];

        Console.WriteLine("And the customer object's other address is.... '{0}'", customer.OtherAddress);
    }

    public static void Main()
    {
        TestDynamic();
        TestObject();
    }
}

Output:

And the customer dynamic's other address is.... '1234 Foo St'
And the customer object's other address is.... '1234 Bar St'

Working code on DotNetFiddle

Answer 2

I assume that you are looking for a "generic" answer that could be applied to other, unknown, situations. However, I am not sure how generic / unknown your situation will be. I came up with this which gets the the type of "OtherAddress" but you will still need to know some of the field names. If you want a totally generic approach, you will need a more extensive extraction of the various properties. The type listed in the debug window is string.

public void GetTypeInfo()
{
    Orders o = new Orders {customer = new Customer[] {new Customer()}};

    dataSource.Add(o);

    PropertyInfo info1 = dataSource[0].GetType().GetProperty("customer");

    Array c = (Array) info1.GetValue(dataSource[0], null);

    Type info2 = c.GetValue(0).GetType();

    PropertyInfo info3 = info2.GetProperty("OtherAddress");

    Debug.WriteLine("type| " + info3.PropertyType.Name);
}