How do I get the FieldInfo of an array field?

SwDevMan81 picture SwDevMan81 · Aug 3, 2009 · Viewed 14.4k times · Source

I'm trying to get the field info of an array value from within a struct. So far I have the following, but I dont see how to get the infomration I want.

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    public struct Test
    {
        public byte Byte1;
        [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValArray, SizeConst=3)]
        public Test2[] Test1;
    }

    BindingFlags struct_field_flags = BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly;
    FieldInfo[] all_struct_fields = typeof(Test).GetFields(struct_field_flags);
    foreach (FieldInfo struct_field in all_struct_fields)
    {
        if(struct_field.FieldType.IsArray)
        {
           // Get FieldInfo for each value in the Test1 array within Test structure
        }
    }

So if I did:

 Type array_type = struct_field.FieldType.GetElementType();

This would return Test2 type, but I dont want the type of the array, I want the FieldInfo or Fields of that structure so I can set values from within it.

Answer

weiqure picture weiqure · Aug 3, 2009

Sorry for the initial wrong answer. I was too lazy to create my own Test2 type so I used a string instead. Here's the right answer (hopefully):

I did what you want to do with the following code:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        object sampleObject = GetSampleObject();
        FieldInfo[] testStructFields = typeof(Test).GetFields();

        foreach (FieldInfo testStructField in testStructFields)
        {
            if (testStructField.FieldType.IsArray)
            {
                // We can cast to ILIst because arrays implement it and we verfied that it is an array in the if statement
                System.Collections.IList sampleObject_test1 = (System.Collections.IList)testStructField.GetValue(sampleObject);
                // We can now get the first element of the array of Test2s:
                object sampleObject_test1_Element0 = sampleObject_test1[0];

                // I hope this the FieldInfo that you want to get:
                FieldInfo myValueFieldInfo = sampleObject_test1_Element0.GetType().GetField("MyValue");

                // Now it is possible to read and write values
                object sampleObject_test1_Element0_MyValue = myValueFieldInfo.GetValue(sampleObject_test1_Element0);
                Console.WriteLine(sampleObject_test1_Element0_MyValue); // prints 99
                myValueFieldInfo.SetValue(sampleObject_test1_Element0, 55);
                sampleObject_test1_Element0_MyValue = myValueFieldInfo.GetValue(sampleObject_test1_Element0);
                Console.WriteLine(sampleObject_test1_Element0_MyValue); // prints 55
            }
        }
    }

    static object GetSampleObject()
    {
        Test sampleTest = new Test();
        sampleTest.Test1 = new Test2[5];
        sampleTest.Test1[0] = new Test2() { MyValue = 99 };
        object sampleObject = sampleTest;
        return sampleObject;
    }
}

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct Test2
{
    public int MyValue;
}

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct Test
{
    public byte Byte1;
    [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValArray, SizeConst = 3)]
    public Test2[] Test1;
}

This is the most important line:

FieldInfo myValueFieldInfo = sampleObject_test1_Element0.GetType().GetField("MyValue");

It should give you the FieldInfo that you are talking about.