How do I use reflection to invoke a private method?

Jeromy Irvine picture Jeromy Irvine · Sep 25, 2008 · Viewed 174.2k times · Source

There are a group of private methods in my class, and I need to call one dynamically based on an input value. Both the invoking code and the target methods are in the same instance. The code looks like this:

MethodInfo dynMethod = this.GetType().GetMethod("Draw_" + itemType);
dynMethod.Invoke(this, new object[] { methodParams });

In this case, GetMethod() will not return private methods. What BindingFlags do I need to supply to GetMethod() so that it can locate private methods?

Answer

wprl picture wprl · Sep 25, 2008

Simply change your code to use the overloaded version of GetMethod that accepts BindingFlags:

MethodInfo dynMethod = this.GetType().GetMethod("Draw_" + itemType, 
    BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
dynMethod.Invoke(this, new object[] { methodParams });

Here's the BindingFlags enumeration documentation.