best practice question

[Bob]

Is there a reasonbly good way to determine what controls will be present in a
class inherited from form, with designer-generated code, without intantiating?

Bob

 

[Stephany Young]

If the class is not instantiated then, as there is no instance of the class,
there will be none.

 

[Fergus Cooney]

Hi Bob,

You can query the Form's Type using Reflection.

Have a play with this:

<code>
Public Sub WhatsInAForm (oFormType As Type)
Dim aF() As FieldInfo
Dim aM() As MemberInfo
Dim Bf As BindingFlags = _
BindingFlags.Instance Or _
BindingFlags.NonPublic Or _
BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly

aF = GetType (oFormType).GetFields (Bf)
Console.WriteLine ("Fields")
For I = 0 To aF.Length - 1
Console.WriteLine ("I = {0} = {1}", I, aF(I).Name)
Next

aM = GetType (oFormType).GetMembers (Bf)
Console.WriteLine ("Members")
For I = 0 To aM.Length - 1
Console.WriteLine ("I = {0} = {1}", I, aM(I).Name)
Next
End Sub
</code>

The BindingFlags are
BF.Instance - Make a FormX to examine.
BF.NonPublic - Controls are Friend, ie. not Public
BF.DeclaredOnly - Skip all the base class stuff.

Regards,
Fergus

 

[Fergus Cooney]

Hi Bob,

Two corrections.

I added the Form Type parameter as an afterthought.
You'll need
aF = oFormType.GetFields (Bf)
aM = oFormType.GetMembers (Bf)
instead of
aF = GetType (oFormType).GetFields (Bf)
aM = GetType (oFormType).GetMembers (Bf)

More importantly, this method <does> instantiate the Form. It will call
the constructor though it won't call Form_Load.

Regards,
Fergus

 

[Bob]

Now why did I think I couldn't use that to see private members? That works
great, that you.

Bob

 

[CJ Taylor]

What if its full of shared methods? =)

If the class is not instantiated then, as there is no instance of the class,
there will be none.