Is there a way to get an array of the arguments passed to a method?

Question

Say I have a method:

 public void SomeMethod(String p1, String p2, int p3)
 {

 #if DEBUG
    object[] args = GetArguments();
    LogParamaters(args);
 #endi         


        

Answer 1

As long as you know what types to expect you could log them in an SQL database. Write a method that does a type check, and then fills the appropriate DB column with the parameter (argument) value. If you have a custom type then you can use the type name and save that as string in it's own special column.

-Edit

Also, using the MethodBase.Name extension method, you could associate your parameters with the method that took them as arguments as mentioned in another post below. Be a handy way of keeping track of all methods used, and with which arguments, and of which type.

Is this even vaguely a good idea? :)

Answer 2

Well, if you just want to pass the values, you can cheat and define an object array:

public static void LogParameters(params object[] vals)
{

}

This will incur boxing on value types and also not give you any parameter names, however.

Say I have a method:

 public void SomeMethod(String p1, String p2, int p3) 
 { 

 #if DEBUG 
    LogParamaters(p1, p2, p3); 
 #endif 

     // Do Normal stuff in the method 
 } 

Update: unfortunately reflection will not do it all automatically for you. You will need to provide the values, but you can use reflection to provide the param names/types:

How can you get the names of method parameters?

So the method sig would change to something like:

public static void LogParameters(string[] methodNames, params object[] vals)
{ }

Then you can enforce/assume that each index in each collection tallies, such that methodNames[0] has the value vals[0].

Answer 3

Well params help with the log call, but won't help the existing method signatures. Logging using an AOP framework might be a more productive approach?