Reflection

Retrieve Properties for an Instance of a Class

Imports System.Reflection

Public Class PropertyExample

    Public Function GetMyProperties() As PropertyInfo()
        Dim objProperties As PropertyInfo()
        objProperties = Me.GetType.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public Or BindingFlags.Instance)
        Return objProperties
    End Function

    Public Property ThisWillBeRetrieved As String = "ThisWillBeRetrieved"

    Private Property ThisWillNot As String = "ThisWillNot"

    Public Shared Property NeitherWillThis As String = "NeitherWillThis"

    Public Overrides Function ToString() As String
        Return String.Join(",", GetMyProperties.Select(Function(pi) pi.Name).ToArray)
    End Function
End Class

The Parameter of GetProperties defines which kinds of Properties will be returned by the function. Since we pass Public and Instance, the method will return only properties that are both public and non-shared. See https://stackoverflow.com/documentation/vb.net/1809/enum/5910/the-flags-attribute for and explanation on how Flag-enums can be combined.

Get the members of a type

Dim flags = BindingFlags.Static Or BindingFlags.Public Or BindingFlags.Instance
Dim members = GetType(String).GetMembers(flags)
For Each member In members
    Console.WriteLine($"{member.Name}, ({member.MemberType})")
Next

Get a method and invoke it

Static method:

Dim parseMethod = GetType(Integer).GetMethod("Parse",{GetType(String)})
Dim result = DirectCast(parseMethod.Invoke(Nothing,{"123"}), Integer)

Instance method:

 Dim instance = "hello".ToUpper
 Dim method = Gettype(String).GetMethod("ToUpper",{})
 Dim result = method.Invoke(instance,{}) 
 Console.WriteLine(result) 'HELLO

Create an instance of a generic type

    Dim openListType = GetType(List(Of ))
    Dim typeParameters = {GetType(String)}
    Dim stringListType = openListType.MakeGenericType(typeParameters)
    Dim instance = DirectCast(Activator.CreateInstance(stringListType), List(Of String))
    instance.Add("Hello")