C# 4 and .NET 4

342 ❘ ChaPTer 14 reflectiOn
The member methods of Type that follow the same pattern are shown in the following table.
TyPe of objeCT reTurned
ConstructorInfo
EventInfo
FieldInfo
MemberInfo
MethodInfo
PropertyInfo
meThods (The meThod WiTh The Plural name reTurns an array)
GetConstructor(), GetConstructors()
GetEvent(), GetEvents()
GetField(), GetFields()
GetMember(), GetMembers(), GetDefaultMembers()
GetMethod(), GetMethods()
GetProperty(), GetProperties()
The GetMember() and GetMembers() methods return details of any or all members of the data type,
regardless of whether these members are constructors, properties, methods, and so on.
The TypeView example
This section demonstrates some of the features of the Type class with a
short example, TypeView, which you can use to list the members
of a data type. The example demonstrates how to use TypeView for a
double; however, you can swap this type with any other data type just by
changing one line of the code in the sample. TypeView displays far more
information than can be displayed in a console window, so we’re going
to take a break from our normal practice and display the output in a
message box. Running TypeView for a double produces the results shown
in Figure 14-1.
The message box displays the name, full name, and namespace of the data
type as well as the name of the underlying type and the base type. Next,
it simply iterates through all the public instance members of the data
type, displaying for each member the declaring type, the type of member
(method, field, and so on), and the name of the member. The declaring
type is the name of the class that actually declares the type member (for
example, System.Double if it is defined or overridden in System.Double,
or the name of the relevant base type if the member is simply inherited
from some base class).
TypeView does not display signatures of methods because you are
retrieving details of all public instance members through MemberInfo
objects, and information about parameters is not available through
a MemberInfo object. To retrieve that information, you would need
references to MethodInfo and other more specific objects, which
means that you would need to obtain details of each type of member
separately.
TypeView does display details of all public instance members, but for
doubles, the only ones defined are fields and methods. For this example,
you will compile TypeView as a console application — there is no figure 14-1
problem with displaying a message box from a console application.
However, the fact that you are using a message box means that
you need to reference the base class assembly System.Windows.Forms.dll, which contains the
classes in the System.Windows.Forms namespace in which the MessageBox class that you will
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