{"id":291,"date":"2011-03-21T15:41:12","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T21:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chrisedwards.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/?p=291"},"modified":"2011-09-18T20:48:06","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T02:48:06","slug":"extension-toprintablestring-dynamically-print-an-object-and-its-properties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/21\/extension-toprintablestring-dynamically-print-an-object-and-its-properties\/","title":{"rendered":"Extension: ToPrintableString() dynamically print an object and its properties"},"content":{"rendered":"

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()<\/code> 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.<\/p>\n

What does it do?<\/h3>\n

Given:<\/p>\n

obj<\/span> =<\/span> new<\/span> TestClass();\r\nobj<\/span>.<\/span>Value1<\/span> =<\/span> "abc"<\/span>;\r\nobj<\/span>.<\/span>Value2<\/span> =<\/span> "123"<\/span>;<\/pre>\n
Callling:<\/p>\n
obj<\/span>.<\/span>ToPrintableString<\/span>();<\/pre>\n
Yeilds a string containing:<\/p>\n
{{ TestClass { Value1 = [ abc ]; Value2 = [ 123 ]; } }}<\/span><\/pre>\n
This is all generated dynamically with reflection. It will print out any properties with public getters. <\/p>\n
The Code<\/h3>\n
The ToPrintableString()<\/code> method does most of the work.<\/p>\n
public<\/span> static<\/span> class<\/span> ObjectExtensions<\/span>\r\n{\r\n    public<\/span> static<\/span> string<\/span> ToPrintableString<\/span><<\/span> T<\/span> ><\/span>( this<\/span> T<\/span> objectToPrint<\/span> ) where<\/span> T<\/span> : class<\/span>\r\n    {\r\n        Type type<\/span> =<\/span> typeof<\/span> ( T<\/span> );\r\n\r\n        var<\/span> sb<\/span> =<\/span> new<\/span> StringBuilder();\r\n        sb<\/span>.<\/span>AppendFormat<\/span>( "{{{{ {0} {{ "<\/span>, type<\/span>.<\/span>Name<\/span> );\r\n\r\n        foreach<\/span> ( PropertyInfo property<\/span> in<\/span> type<\/span>.<\/span>GetPublicGetProperties<\/span>() )\r\n        {\r\n            sb<\/span>.<\/span>AppendFormat<\/span>( "{0} = [ {1} ]; "<\/span>,\r\n                             property<\/span>.<\/span>Name<\/span>,\r\n                             property<\/span>.<\/span>GetValue<\/span>( objectToPrint<\/span>, null<\/span> ) );\r\n        }\r\n\r\n        sb<\/span>.<\/span>Append<\/span>( "} }}"<\/span> );\r\n\r\n        return<\/span> sb<\/span>.<\/span>ToString<\/span>();\r\n    }\r\n}<\/pre>\n
The GetPublicGetProperties()<\/code> gets the properties with public getters. This method is part of my ReflectionExtensions class. I include it here for completeness.<\/p>\n
public<\/span> static<\/span> class<\/span> ReflectionExtensions<\/span>\r\n{\r\n    public<\/span> static<\/span> PropertyInfo[] GetPublicGetProperties<\/span>( this<\/span> Type type<\/span> )\r\n    {\r\n        return<\/span> type<\/span>.<\/span>FindMembers<\/span>( MemberTypes<\/span>.<\/span>Property<\/span>,\r\n                                 BindingFlags<\/span>.<\/span>Public<\/span> |<\/span> BindingFlags<\/span>.<\/span>Instance<\/span>,\r\n                                 ( m<\/span>, f<\/span> ) =><\/span> ( (PropertyInfo)m<\/span> ).<\/span>CanRead<\/span>,\r\n                                 null<\/span> )\r\n                            .<\/span>Cast<\/span><<\/span> PropertyInfo ><\/span>()\r\n                            .<\/span>ToArray<\/span>();\r\n    }\r\n}<\/pre>\n
This code can be found in my Shiloh.Testing github repository<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Enjoy!<\/p>\n
-Chris<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,31],"tags":[79,30],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-net","category-c","tag-net","tag-csharp"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/architester.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}