Get a list of Components on a Form

A form provides its Controls collection as a way to reference all the controls it hosts. Although it isn't needed as often, it seems odd that there isn't a similar list of non-UI components like Timers, BackgroundWorkers etc. Here is a function that will list all the components on a Form, whether they have been created with the Designer or declared in code:

Code:

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Imports System.Reflection
Imports System.ComponentModel

  Public Function GetComponents(ByVal frm As Form) As List(Of Component)
        Dim components As New List(Of Component)
        Dim fieldInfos() As FieldInfo = frm.GetType.GetFields _
            (BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.Instance Or _
            BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly)
        For Each f As FieldInfo In fieldInfos
            If f.FieldType.BaseType Is GetType(Component) Then
                Dim c As Component = TryCast(f.GetValue(frm), Component)
                If c IsNot Nothing Then components.Add(c)
            End If
        Next
        Return components
    End Function

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Hope it's useful! BB

Pretty neat :)