Extension: ToPrintableString() dynamically print an object and its properties

Have you ever wanted to print out an object and all its property values to a log file or an error message? Have you overridden the ToString() method on all your objects to do this? If you have, you know how tedious it can be, and you will really appreciate this method.

What does it do?

Given:

obj = new TestClass();
obj.Value1 = "abc";
obj.Value2 = "123";

Callling:

obj.ToPrintableString();

Yeilds a string containing:

{{ TestClass { Value1 = [ abc ]; Value2 = [ 123 ]; } }}

This is all generated dynamically with reflection. It will print out any properties with public getters.

The Code

The ToPrintableString() method does most of the work.

public static class ObjectExtensions
{
    public static string ToPrintableString< T >( this T objectToPrint ) where T : class
    {
        Type type = typeof ( T );

        var sb = new StringBuilder();
        sb.AppendFormat( "{{{{ {0} {{ ", type.Name );

        foreach ( PropertyInfo property in type.GetPublicGetProperties() )
        {
            sb.AppendFormat( "{0} = [ {1} ]; ",
                             property.Name,
                             property.GetValue( objectToPrint, null ) );
        }

        sb.Append( "} }}" );

        return sb.ToString();
    }
}

The GetPublicGetProperties() gets the properties with public getters. This method is part of my ReflectionExtensions class. I include it here for completeness.

public static class ReflectionExtensions
{
    public static PropertyInfo[] GetPublicGetProperties( this Type type )
    {
        return type.FindMembers( MemberTypes.Property,
                                 BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance,
                                 ( m, f ) => ( (PropertyInfo)m ).CanRead,
                                 null )
                            .Cast< PropertyInfo >()
                            .ToArray();
    }
}

This code can be found in my Shiloh.Testing github repository.

Enjoy!

-Chris