Listing the properties of an object

Sometimes you just want to print out the state of some reasonably rich object (for logging or GUI mock-up or whatever). This code gives you a PropertyGetter class with two easy-to-use static methods. listProperties returns a name: value string listing of the properties on the input object, for easy logging.

If you want the object's properties as a list of properties you can get that as well.

NB: This simple class does not recurse through complex objects, so you will only ever get the top-level of a property.

Code:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Text;

namespace Code_Examples {
 class PropertyGetter {
  public static string listProperties(object someObject) {
   StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

   List<pair> props = getProperties(someObject);

   foreach (Pair prop in props) {
    sb.AppendLine(prop.Name + ": " + prop.Value);
   }
   return sb.ToString();
  }

  public static List<pair> getProperties(object someObject) {
   List<pair> dic = new List<pair>();

   PropertyInfo[] props = someObject.GetType().GetProperties();
   foreach (PropertyInfo prop in props) {
    Pair t = new Pair {
     Name = prop.Name,
     Value = prop.GetValue(someObject, null)
    };
    dic.Add(t);
   }
   return dic;
  }
 }

 public class Pair {
  public string Name {
   get;
   set;
  }
  public object Value {
   get;
   set;
  }
 }
}

Logging snippets ready to go

My last post was some simple intro to how you can make your own snippets - here are some easy ones I made to make logging with log4net easier.

This first one is one I use simply to get a logger with the name of the current class. I put this in most every class. Nothing fancy here, just type log and press tab to get a logger named log.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<CodeSnippets xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
  <CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
    <Header>
      <Title>Logging
   </Title>
      <Author>Tomas Ekeli</Author>
      <Description>Initializes a logger with the name of the current class</Description>
      <HelpUrl />
      <SnippetTypes />
      <Keywords />
      <Shortcut>log</Shortcut>
    </Header>
    <Snippet>
      <References>
        <Reference>
          <Assembly>log4net.dll</Assembly>
          <Url />
        </Reference>
      </References>
      <Imports>
        <Import>
          <Namespace>log4net</Namespace>
        </Import>
      </Imports>
      <Declarations />
      <Code Language="CSharp" Kind="" Delimiter="$"><![CDATA[protected static readonly ILog log = LogManager.GetLogger(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType); ]]></Code>
    </Snippet>
  </CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>

Now you've got a logger up and running you'll be doing a lot of calls to log.debug("somestring") and even more with formatting on that string. So here's a snippet for that:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<CodeSnippets xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
  <CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
    <Header>
      <Title>logFormattedString</Title>
      <Author>Tomas Ekeli</Author>
      <Description>log formatted string</Description>
      <HelpUrl></HelpUrl>
      <SnippetTypes />
      <Keywords />
      <Shortcut>lsf</Shortcut>
    </Header>
    <Snippet>
      <References>
        <Reference>
          <Assembly>log4net</Assembly>
          <Url />
        </Reference>
      </References>
      <Imports>
        <Import>
          <Namespace>log4net</Namespace>
        </Import>
      </Imports>
      <Declarations>
        <Literal Editable="true">
          <ID>Level</ID>
          <Type />
          <ToolTip>Log level</ToolTip>
          <Default>Debug</Default>
          <Function />
        </Literal>
        <Literal Editable="true">
          <ID>Message</ID>
          <Type />
          <ToolTip />
          <Default>field value: {0}</Default>
          <Function />
        </Literal>
        <div class="youtube-video"><object Editable="true">
          <ID>Field</ID>
          <Type>Object</Type>
          <ToolTip>The field to log</ToolTip>
          <Default></Default>
          <Function />
        </object></div>
      </Declarations>
      <Code Language="csharp" Kind="method body" Delimiter="$"><![CDATA[log.$Level$(string.Format("$Message$", $Field$));]]></Code>
    </Snippet>
  </CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>

Finally a very nice thing about logging is when you can push the context on a stack for inclusion. I use this all the time. This snippet can be used as a surrounding snippet as well (mark the text you want to surround in a context and right-click -> Surround-with

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<CodeSnippets xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
  <CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
    <Header>
      <Title>logFormattedString</Title>
      <Author>Tomas Ekeli</Author>
      <Description>log formatted string</Description>
      <HelpUrl></HelpUrl>
      <SnippetTypes />
      <Keywords />
      <Shortcut>lsf</Shortcut>
    </Header>
    <Snippet>
      <References>
        <Reference>
          <Assembly>log4net</Assembly>
          <Url />
        </Reference>
      </References>
      <Imports>
        <Import>
          <Namespace>log4net</Namespace>
        </Import>
      </Imports>
      <Declarations>
        <Literal Editable="true">
          <ID>Level</ID>
          <Type />
          <ToolTip>Log level</ToolTip>
          <Default>Debug</Default>
          <Function />
        </Literal>
        <Literal Editable="true">
          <ID>Message</ID>
          <Type />
          <ToolTip />
          <Default>field value: {0}</Default>
          <Function />
        </Literal>
        <div class="youtube-video"><object Editable="true">
          <ID>Field</ID>
          <Type>Object</Type>
          <ToolTip>The field to log</ToolTip>
          <Default></Default>
          <Function />
        </object></div>
      </Declarations>
      <Code Language="csharp" Kind="method body" Delimiter="$"><![CDATA[log.$Level$(string.Format("$Message$", $Field$));]]></Code>
    </Snippet>
  </CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>