CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#visual-studio-2015
hiFI
hiFI

Reputation: 1961

Get XML Documentation Comments

/// <summary>  
///  This can have any description of the class  
/// </summary>  
public class MyClass {}

In the above code sample, is there any way I could get the summary Value.

My objective in such this, is to record objects' actions in a log and in such context, I know what class did what and when.

I can get the Name of the class from this.GetType().Name but in some situation I will need to have any description associate with it.

If there is any alternative way of having a description of the class other than the XML documentation, then I would like to hear about it.

Thank You,

Upvotes: 3

Views: 2440

Answers (2)

Bradley Smith
Bradley Smith

Reputation: 13601

If you don't want to use XML comments, you can store the description as metadata using the [Description] attribute, i.e:

[Description("This can have any description of the class")]
public class MyClass {}

You can then access the value of this attribute at run-time:

public static string GetDescription(Type t) {
    return TypeDescriptor.GetAttributes(t)
        .OfType<DescriptionAttribute>()
        .Select(x => x.Description)
        .FirstOrDefault();
}

e.g. GetDescription(typeof(MyClass))

Upvotes: 3

Patrick Hofman
Patrick Hofman

Reputation: 156928

You can't get the XML documentation from reflection, since it is not generated into the assembly. It is generated to a separate XML file, which you can open and read from your application. (Distribution might be an issue, since the XML file is generated after the assembly was compiled, so you can't include it as resource in the assembly itself.)

An alternative solution might be to create a special attribute, which you can fill and read. Something like:

[Summary("This can have any description of the class.")]
public class MyClass {}

The problem with that solution is that it doesn't generate the documentation XML, so you have no IntelliSense, etc.

Upvotes: 2

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