CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#
Mohamed BOUZIDI
Mohamed BOUZIDI

Reputation: 125

How to get source value affected to a constant using C# reflection

Here is my problem:

I have a class A(from project A) referencing class B(from project B). Each project is built to its own assembly

 public class B
{
   public const string CONSTANT_B= "Anything";

}


public class A
{
  public const string filedA = B.CONSTANT_B;

}

I need to get fieldA from A class and verify if its value comes from another class(here class B).

I did this :

 var fieldInfo = typeof(A).GetFields(BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly | BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Public)[0];
 var value = fieldInfo.GetValue(BindingFlags.Default);

The result was: 'Anything'

So how please can I get B.CONSTANT_B instead? or just to know if Class A needs reference to class B.

My goal is to remove the reference to project B if it's unused by the project A. So how can I decide to remove It or to keep It? FYI: I have both source code and binaries of these projects.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 175

Answers (1)

D Stanley
D Stanley

Reputation: 152566

how please can I get B.CONSTANT_B instead?

You can't When you build project A the value for the field is read from the constant field of clas B and baked directly into the code. There is no metadata to query or IL to disassemble that would tell you that the value came from B.CONSTANT_B.

The only way that you can verify that class A gets the constant from class B is by looking at the source code.

Note also that if you change the value of B.CONSTANT_B then that change is NOT reflected in class A unless you rebuild the project.

Now if both fields were readonly instead of constant you could possibly disassemble the IL to see if project A references the read-only field in B, but it would still not be available via reflection.

Upvotes: 3

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