c# - Reflection. What can we achieve using it?

Question

I'm reading and learning about reflection in C#. It would be fine to know how can it help me in my daily work, so I want people with more experience than me tell me samples or ideas about what kinds of things can we achieve using it, or how can we reduce de amount of code that we write.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I recently used it to add custom attributes to fields in my enum:

public enum ShapeName
{
    // Lines
    [ShapeDescription(ShapeType.Line, "Horizontal Scroll Distance", "The horizontal distance to scroll the browser in order to center the game.")]
    HorizontalScrollBar,
    [ShapeDescription(ShapeType.Line, "Vertical Scroll Distance", "The vertical distance to scroll the browser in order to center the game.")]
    VerticalScrollBar,
}

Using reflection to get the field:

    public static ShapeDescriptionAttribute GetShapeDescription(this ShapeName shapeName)
    {
        Type type = shapeName.GetType();
        FieldInfo fieldInfo = type.GetField(shapeName.ToString());
        ShapeDescriptionAttribute[] attribs = fieldInfo.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(ShapeDescriptionAttribute), false) as ShapeDescriptionAttribute[];

        return (attribs != null && attribs.Length > 0) ? attribs[0] : new ShapeDescriptionAttribute(ShapeType.NotSet, shapeName.ToString());
    }

The attribute class:

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Field)]
public class ShapeDescriptionAttribute: Attribute
{
    #region Constructor
    public ShapeDescriptionAttribute(ShapeType shapeType, string name) : this(shapeType, name, name) { }

    public ShapeDescriptionAttribute(ShapeType shapeType, string name, string description)
    {
        Description = description;
        Name = name;
        Type = shapeType;
    }
    #endregion

    #region Public Properties
    public string Description { get; protected set; }

    public string Name { get; protected set; }

    public ShapeType Type { get; protected set; }
    #endregion
}