Iterate through Object's own Strings & Trim each

Question

I have multiple large objects which each have about 60 strings. I have to trim all those strings, and I'd like to do so without having to go this.mystring = this.mystring.Trim(). Instead, I'm looking for a way to automatically have each object discover its own strings and then perform the operation.

I know a little bit about reflection, but not enough, but I think this is possible?

Also, I'm not sure if this matters, but some string properties are read-only (only have a getter), so those properties would have to be skipped.

Help?

Answer 1

Well, it's easy enough to get all the properties, and find out which ones are strings and writable. LINQ makes it even easier.

var props = instance.GetType()
                    .GetProperties(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public)
                    // Ignore non-string properties
                    .Where(prop => prop.PropertyType == typeof(string))
                    // Ignore indexers
                    .Where(prop => prop.GetIndexParameters().Length == 0)
                    // Must be both readable and writable
                    .Where(prop => prop.CanWrite && prop.CanRead);

foreach (PropertyInfo prop in props)
{
    string value = (string) prop.GetValue(instance, null);
    if (value != null)
    {
        value = value.Trim();
        prop.SetValue(instance, value, null);
    }
}

You may want to only set the property if trimming actually makes a difference, to avoid redundant computations for complex properties - or it may not be an issue for you.

There are various ways of improving the performance if necessary - things like:

• Simply caching the relevant properties for each type
• Using Delegate.CreateDelegate to build delegates for the getters and setters
• Possibly using expression trees, although I'm not sure whether they'd help here

I wouldn't take any of those steps unless performance is actually a problem though.

Answer 2

Not necessary to make IEnumerable check in the props-loop and if actual instance is a IEnumerable, props are ignored. Fix for IEnumerable part:

private void TrimWhitespace(object instance)
{
    if (instance != null)
    {
        if (instance is IEnumerable)
        {
            foreach (var item in (IEnumerable)instance)
            {
                TrimWhitespace(item);
            }
        }

        var props = instance.GetType()
                .GetProperties(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public)
            // Ignore indexers
                .Where(prop => prop.GetIndexParameters().Length == 0)
            // Must be both readable and writable
                .Where(prop => prop.CanWrite && prop.CanRead);

        foreach (PropertyInfo prop in props)
        {
            if (prop.GetValue(instance, null) is string)
            {
                string value = (string)prop.GetValue(instance, null);
                if (value != null)
                {
                    value = value.Trim();
                    prop.SetValue(instance, value, null);
                }
            }
            else 
                TrimWhitespace(prop.GetValue(instance, null));
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

So to expand on this a little, I have a complex object with Lists of Lists and I wanted to traverse that and trim all of the child string objects as well. I'm posting what I did as of what I built on from @Jon did in his answer. I'm curious if there was a better way to do it or if I missed something obvious.

The objects I have are more complex than this but it should illustrate what I was trying.

public class Customer
{
  public string Name { get; set; }
  public List<Contact> Contacts { get; set; }
}

public class Contact
{
  public string Name { get; set; }
  public List<Email> EmailAddresses {get; set;}
}

public class Email
{
  public string EmailAddress {get; set;}
}


    private void TrimWhitespace(object instance)
    {
        if (instance != null)
        {
            var props = instance.GetType()
                    .GetProperties(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public)
                // Ignore indexers
                    .Where(prop => prop.GetIndexParameters().Length == 0)
                // Must be both readable and writable
                    .Where(prop => prop.CanWrite && prop.CanRead);

            foreach (PropertyInfo prop in props)
            {
                if (instance is IEnumerable)
                {
                    foreach (var item in (IEnumerable)instance)
                    {
                        TrimWhitespace(item);
                    }
                }
                else if (prop.GetValue(instance, null) is string)
                {
                    string value = (string)prop.GetValue(instance, null);
                    if (value != null)
                    {
                        value = value.Trim();
                        prop.SetValue(instance, value, null);
                    }
                }
                else 
                    TrimWhitespace(prop.GetValue(instance, null));
            }
        }
    }

Thoughts?

Answer 4

Something like:

    foreach (PropertyInfo prop in obj.GetType().GetProperties(
        BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public))
    {
        if (prop.CanRead && prop.CanWrite && prop.PropertyType == typeof(string)
            && (prop.GetIndexParameters().Length == 0)) // watch for indexers!
        {
            var s = (string)prop.GetValue(obj, null);
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(s)) s = s.Trim();
            prop.SetValue(obj, s, null);
        }
    }