c# foreach (property in object)… Is there a simple way of doing this?

Question

I have a class containing several properties (all are strings if it makes any difference).
I also have a list, which contains many different instances of the class.

Answer 1

A small word of caution, if "do some stuff" means updating the value of the actual property that you visit AND if there is a struct type property along the path from root object to the visited property, the change you made on the property will not be reflected on the root object.

Answer 2

Your'e almost there, you just need to get the properties from the type, rather than expect the properties to be accessible in the form of a collection or property bag:

var property in obj.GetType().GetProperties()

From there you can access like so:

property.Name
property.GetValue(obj, null)

With GetValue the second parameter will allow you to specify index values, which will work with properties returning collections - since a string is a collection of chars, you can also specify an index to return a character if needs be.

Answer 3

I looked for the answer to a similar question on this page, I wrote the answers to several similar questions that may help people who enter this page.

Class List

List < T > class represents the list of objects which can be accessed by index. It comes under the System.Collection.Generic namespace. List class can be used to create a collection of different types like integers, strings etc. List class also provides the methods to search, sort, and manipulate lists.

Class with property:

class TestClss
{
    public string id { set; get; }
    public string cell1 { set; get; }
    public string cell2 { set; get; }
}
var MyArray = new List<TestClss> {
    new TestClss() { id = "1", cell1 = "cell 1 row 1 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 1 Data" },
    new TestClss() { id = "2", cell1 = "cell 1 row 2 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 2 Data" },
    new TestClss() { id = "3", cell1 = "cell 1 row 2 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 3 Data" }
};
foreach (object Item in MyArray)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Row Start");
    foreach (PropertyInfo property in Item.GetType().GetProperties())
    {
        var Key = property.Name;
        var Value = property.GetValue(Item, null);
        Console.WriteLine("{0}={1}", Key, Value);
    }
}

OR, Class with field:

class TestClss
{
    public string id = "";
    public string cell1 = "";
    public string cell2 = "";
}
var MyArray = new List<TestClss> {
    new TestClss() { id = "1", cell1 = "cell 1 row 1 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 1 Data" },
    new TestClss() { id = "2", cell1 = "cell 1 row 2 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 2 Data" },
    new TestClss() { id = "3", cell1 = "cell 1 row 2 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 3 Data" }
};
foreach (object Item in MyArray)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Row Start");
    foreach (var fieldInfo in Item.GetType().GetFields())
    {
        var Key = fieldInfo.Name;
        var Value = fieldInfo.GetValue(Item);
    }

}

OR, List of objects (without same cells):

var MyArray = new List<object> {
    new { id = "1", cell1 = "cell 1 row 1 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 1 Data" },
    new { id = "2", cell1 = "cell 1 row 2 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 2 Data" },
    new { id = "3", cell1 = "cell 1 row 2 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 3 Data", anotherCell = "" }
};
foreach (object Item in MyArray)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Row Start");
    foreach (var props in Item.GetType().GetProperties())
    {
        var Key = props.Name;
        var Value = props.GetMethod.Invoke(Item, null).ToString();
        Console.WriteLine("{0}={1}", Key, Value);
    }
}

OR, List of objects (It must have the same cells):

var MyArray = new[] {
    new { id = "1", cell1 = "cell 1 row 1 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 1 Data" },
    new { id = "2", cell1 = "cell 1 row 2 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 2 Data" },
    new { id = "3", cell1 = "cell 1 row 2 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 3 Data" }
};
foreach (object Item in MyArray)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Row Start");
    foreach (var props in Item.GetType().GetProperties())
    {
        var Key = props.Name;
        var Value = props.GetMethod.Invoke(Item, null).ToString();
        Console.WriteLine("{0}={1}", Key, Value);
    }
}

OR, List of objects (with key):

var MyArray = new {
    row1 = new { id = "1", cell1 = "cell 1 row 1 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 1 Data" },
    row2 = new { id = "2", cell1 = "cell 1 row 2 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 2 Data" },
    row3 = new { id = "3", cell1 = "cell 1 row 2 Data", cell2 = "cell 2 row 3 Data" }
};
// using System.ComponentModel;  for TypeDescriptor
foreach (PropertyDescriptor Item in TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(MyArray))
{
    string Rowkey = Item.Name;
    object RowValue = Item.GetValue(MyArray);
    Console.WriteLine("Row key is: {0}", Rowkey);
    foreach (var props in RowValue.GetType().GetProperties())
    {
        var Key = props.Name;
        var Value = props.GetMethod.Invoke(RowValue, null).ToString();
        Console.WriteLine("{0}={1}", Key, Value);
    }
}

OR, List of Dictionary

var MyArray = new List<Dictionary<string, string>>() {
    new Dictionary<string, string>() { { "id", "1" }, { "cell1", "cell 1 row 1 Data" }, { "cell2", "cell 2 row 1 Data" } },
    new Dictionary<string, string>() { { "id", "2" }, { "cell1", "cell 1 row 2 Data" }, { "cell2", "cell 2 row 2 Data" } },
    new Dictionary<string, string>() { { "id", "3" }, { "cell1", "cell 1 row 3 Data" }, { "cell2", "cell 2 row 3 Data" } }
};
foreach (Dictionary<string, string> Item in MyArray)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Row Start");
    foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> props in Item)
    {
        var Key = props.Key;
        var Value = props.Value;
        Console.WriteLine("{0}={1}", Key, Value);
    }
}

Good luck..

Answer 4

Sure, no problem:

foreach(object item in sequence)
{
    if (item == null) continue;
    foreach(PropertyInfo property in item.GetType().GetProperties())
    {
        // do something with the property
    }
}

Answer 5

Use Reflection to do this

SomeClass A = SomeClass(...)
PropertyInfo[] properties = A.GetType().GetProperties();

Answer 6

A copy-paste solution (extension methods) mostly based on earlier responses to this question.

Also properly handles IDicitonary (ExpandoObject/dynamic) which is often needed when dealing with this reflected stuff.

Not recommended for use in tight loops and other hot paths. In those cases you're gonna need some caching/IL emit/expression tree compilation.

    public static IEnumerable<(string Name, object Value)> GetProperties(this object src)
    {
        if (src is IDictionary<string, object> dictionary)
        {
            return dictionary.Select(x => (x.Key, x.Value));
        }
        return src.GetObjectProperties().Select(x => (x.Name, x.GetValue(src)));
    }

    public static IEnumerable<PropertyInfo> GetObjectProperties(this object src)
    {
        return src.GetType()
            .GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance)
            .Where(p => !p.GetGetMethod().GetParameters().Any());
    }