reflection question [resolved]

[tr333]

hi,

what is reflection???

i have heard a lot about it, but have no idea what it actually is.

[ntg]

MSDN

[tr333]

i have read that before but i dont understand most of it.

too technical and not enough plain english...

not good for people new to .net

[Asgorath]

Hi
There are 2 samples reflexion in the vb.net codebank forum.

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=306850 http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=310409

Regards
Jorge

[mendhak]

Given a .NET assembly, you can use Reflection to access various methods, events, properties, etc. in it.

There may be times where you need to use it. Recently, I was working on a testbed application tester which would be passed a .net assembly. I would run through it's methods, invoke them and get the results, comparing it with an existing 'result' file.

Never finished it, but without reflection it wouldn't have been possible.

[tr333]

i understand some of the things that can be done using reflection, but i still dont fully understand the definition of reflection.

from MSDN:

provide a managed view of loaded types, methods, and fields, with the ability to dynamically create and invoke types

can someone please explain this statement in words that are easy to understand for someone new to .NET

[mendhak]

It means:

If you look at my example in the link above, the Reflection namespace allows me to iterate through the objects and properties, etc. of the class. Also, I could use the InvokeMethod() object and pass it a name, it would invoke that method.

[tr333]

whats invoking a method mean?

[mendhak]

Calling a method.

[tr333]

is a method just another name for a function/subroutine?

[Asgorath]

correct

[tr333]

so i guess reflection is just a way to control other objects/methods and their properties

[mendhak]

It can be used for that. You can also create new instances of forms in other assemblies, for example.

Here's another example of usage:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/is...n/default.aspx

[taxes]

Hi,

As I understand it, you can use Reflection to refer to objects, methods etc using a string, which can be provided by the user as well as in design view, rather than hardcoding in the actual name. You can do this in other ways as well, to a certain extent, e.g. CallByName or Arrays of objects, but Reflection provides a more flexible approach.

CallByName and Arrays are easier to learn.

[tr333]

thanks for the help on this...
nothing mission critical, but its nice to know.