Creating a class for an interface at runtime, in C#

Question

I\'m looking at taking a set of objects, let\'s say there\'s 3 objects alive at the moment, which all implement a common interface, and then wrap those objects inside a fourth o

Answer 1

(I'm justifying an answer here by adding extra context/info)

Yes, at the moment Reflection.Emit is the only way to solve this.

In .NET 4.0, the Expression class has been extended to support both loops and statement blocks, so for single method usage, a compiled Expression would be a good idea. But even this won't support multi-method interfaces (just single-method delegates).

Fortunately, I've done this previously; see How can I write a generic container class that implements a given interface in C#?

Answer 2

I'll post my own implementation here, if anyone's interested.

This is heavily influenced and copied from Marc's answer, which I accepted.

The code can be used to wrap a set of objects, all implementing a common interface, inside a new object, also implementing said interface. When methods and properties on the returned object is accessed, the corresponding methods and properties on the underlying objects are accessed in the same way.

Here there be dragons: This is for a specific usage. There's potential for odd problems with this, in particular since the code does not ensure that all underlying objects are given the exact same objects as the callee is passing (or rather, it does not prohibit one of the underlying objects from messing with the arguments), and for methods that returns a value, only the last return value will be returned. As for out/ref arguments, I haven't even tested how that works, but it probably doesn't. You have been warned.

#region Using

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Reflection.Emit;
using LVK.Collections;

#endregion

namespace LVK.IoC
{
    /// <summary>
    /// This class implements a service wrapper that can wrap multiple services into a single multicast
    /// service, that will in turn dispatch all method calls down into all the underlying services.
    /// </summary>
    /// <remarks>
    /// This code is heavily influenced and copied from Marc Gravell's implementation which he
    /// posted on Stack Overflow here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/847809
    /// </remarks>
    public static class MulticastService
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Wrap the specified services in a single multicast service object.
        /// </summary>
        /// <typeparam name="TService">
        /// The type of service to implement a multicast service for.
        /// </typeparam>
        /// <param name="services">
        /// The underlying service objects to multicast all method calls to.
        /// </param>
        /// <returns>
        /// The multicast service instance.
        /// </returns>
        /// <exception cref="ArgumentNullException">
        /// <para><paramref name="services"/> is <c>null</c>.</para>
        /// <para>- or -</para>
        /// <para><paramref name="services"/> contains a <c>null</c> reference.</para>
        /// </exception>
        /// <exception cref="ArgumentException">
        /// <para><typeparamref name="TService"/> is not an interface type.</para>
        /// </exception>
        public static TService Wrap<TService>(params TService[] services)
            where TService: class
        {
            return (TService)Wrap(typeof(TService), (Object[])services);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Wrap the specified services in a single multicast service object.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="serviceInterfaceType">
        /// The <see cref="Type"/> object for the service interface to implement a multicast service for.
        /// </param>
        /// <param name="services">
        /// The underlying service objects to multicast all method calls to.
        /// </param>
        /// <returns>
        /// The multicast service instance.
        /// </returns>
        /// <exception cref="ArgumentNullException">
        /// <para><paramref name="serviceInterfaceType"/> is <c>null</c>.</para>
        /// <para>- or -</para>
        /// <para><paramref name="services"/> is <c>null</c>.</para>
        /// <para>- or -</para>
        /// <para><paramref name="services"/> contains a <c>null</c> reference.</para>
        /// </exception>
        /// <exception cref="ArgumentException">
        /// <para><typeparamref name="TService"/> is not an interface type.</para>
        /// </exception>
        /// <exception cref="InvalidOperationException">
        /// <para>One or more of the service objects in <paramref name="services"/> does not implement
        /// the <paramref name="serviceInterfaceType"/> interface.</para>
        /// </exception>
        public static Object Wrap(Type serviceInterfaceType, params Object[] services)
        {
            #region Parameter Validation

            if (Object.ReferenceEquals(null, serviceInterfaceType))
                throw new ArgumentNullException("serviceInterfaceType");
            if (!serviceInterfaceType.IsInterface)
                throw new ArgumentException("serviceInterfaceType");
            if (Object.ReferenceEquals(null, services) || services.Length == 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("services");
            foreach (var service in services)
            {
                if (Object.ReferenceEquals(null, service))
                    throw new ArgumentNullException("services");
                if (!serviceInterfaceType.IsAssignableFrom(service.GetType()))
                    throw new InvalidOperationException("One of the specified services does not implement the specified service interface");
            }

            #endregion

            if (services.Length == 1)
                return services[0];

            AssemblyName assemblyName = new AssemblyName(String.Format("tmp_{0}", serviceInterfaceType.FullName));
            String moduleName = String.Format("{0}.dll", assemblyName.Name);
            String ns = serviceInterfaceType.Namespace;
            if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(ns))
                ns += ".";

            var assembly = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.DefineDynamicAssembly(assemblyName,
                AssemblyBuilderAccess.RunAndSave);
            var module = assembly.DefineDynamicModule(moduleName, false);
            var type = module.DefineType(String.Format("{0}Multicast_{1}", ns, serviceInterfaceType.Name),
                TypeAttributes.Class |
                TypeAttributes.AnsiClass |
                TypeAttributes.Sealed |
                TypeAttributes.NotPublic);
            type.AddInterfaceImplementation(serviceInterfaceType);

            var ar = Array.CreateInstance(serviceInterfaceType, services.Length);
            for (Int32 index = 0; index < services.Length; index++)
                ar.SetValue(services[index], index);

            // Define _Service0..N-1 private service fields
            FieldBuilder[] fields = new FieldBuilder[services.Length];
            var cab = new CustomAttributeBuilder(
                typeof(DebuggerBrowsableAttribute).GetConstructor(new Type[] { typeof(DebuggerBrowsableState) }),
                new Object[] { DebuggerBrowsableState.Never });
            for (Int32 index = 0; index < services.Length; index++)
            {
                fields[index] = type.DefineField(String.Format("_Service{0}", index),
                    serviceInterfaceType, FieldAttributes.Private);

                // Ensure the field don't show up in the debugger tooltips
                fields[index].SetCustomAttribute(cab);
            }

            // Define a simple constructor that takes all our services as arguments
            var ctor = type.DefineConstructor(MethodAttributes.Public,
                CallingConventions.HasThis,
                Sequences.Repeat(serviceInterfaceType, services.Length).ToArray());
            var generator = ctor.GetILGenerator();

            // Store each service into its own fields
            for (Int32 index = 0; index < services.Length; index++)
            {
                generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_0);
                switch (index)
                {
                    case 0:
                        generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_1);
                        break;

                    case 1:
                        generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_2);
                        break;

                    case 2:
                        generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_3);
                        break;

                    default:
                        generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg, index + 1);
                        break;
                }
                generator.Emit(OpCodes.Stfld, fields[index]);
            }
            generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ret);

            // Implement all the methods of the interface
            foreach (var method in serviceInterfaceType.GetMethods())
            {
                var args = method.GetParameters();
                var methodImpl = type.DefineMethod(method.Name,
                    MethodAttributes.Private | MethodAttributes.Virtual,
                    method.ReturnType, (from arg in args select arg.ParameterType).ToArray());
                type.DefineMethodOverride(methodImpl, method);

                // Generate code to simply call down into each service object
                // Any return values are discarded, except the last one, which is returned
                generator = methodImpl.GetILGenerator();
                for (Int32 index = 0; index < services.Length; index++)
                {
                    generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_0);
                    generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ldfld, fields[index]);
                    for (Int32 paramIndex = 0; paramIndex < args.Length; paramIndex++)
                    {
                        switch (paramIndex)
                        {
                            case 0:
                                generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_1);
                                break;

                            case 1:
                                generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_2);
                                break;

                            case 2:
                                generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_3);
                                break;

                            default:
                                generator.Emit((paramIndex < 255)
                                    ? OpCodes.Ldarg_S
                                    : OpCodes.Ldarg,
                                    paramIndex + 1);
                                break;
                        }

                    }
                    generator.Emit(OpCodes.Callvirt, method);
                    if (method.ReturnType != typeof(void) && index < services.Length - 1)
                        generator.Emit(OpCodes.Pop); // discard N-1 return values
                }
                generator.Emit(OpCodes.Ret);
            }

            return Activator.CreateInstance(type.CreateType(), services);
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

Did you really need to create the assembly at runtime?

Probably you don't need it.

c# give you Action<T>, the is operator and lambda/delegates...