Is there a way to get an array of the arguments passed to a method?

Question

Say I have a method:

 public void SomeMethod(String p1, String p2, int p3)
 {

 #if DEBUG
    object[] args = GetArguments();
    LogParamaters(args);
 #endi         


        

Answer 1

Here's what I came up with as a solution:

PostSharp or another AOP solution wasn't really practical in this situation, so unfortunately I had to abandon that idea.

It appears that while it is possible to parameter names and types using reflection, the only way to access the runtime values is with a debugger attached.

See here for more info:

StackOverflow

microsoft.public.dotnet.framework

So that still left me with the problem of ~50 methods that needed this logging adding by hand.

Reflection to the rescue...

public String GetMethodParameterArray()
    {
        var output = new StringBuilder();
        output.AppendLine();

        Type t = typeof(API);
        foreach (var mi in t.GetMethods())
        {
                var argsLine = new StringBuilder();
                bool isFirst = true;
                argsLine.Append("object[] args = {");
                var args = mi.GetParameters();

                foreach (var pi in args)
                {
                    if (isFirst)
                    {
                        isFirst = false;
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        argsLine.Append(", ");
                    }
                    argsLine.AppendFormat("{0}", pi.Name);
                }
                argsLine.AppendLine("};"); //close object[] initialiser

                output.AppendLine(argsLine.ToString());
                output.AppendFormat("Log(\"{0}\",args);", mi.Name);
                output.AppendLine();
                output.AppendLine();
            }
        return output.ToString();
    }

This code snippet loops through the methods on a class and outputs an object[] array initialised with the arguments passed into the method and a Log call containing the arguments and the method name.

Example output:

object[] args = {username, password, name, startDate, endDate, cost};
Log("GetAwesomeData",args);

This block can then be pasted into the top of the method to achieve the required effect.

It is more manual than I would have liked, but it is a lot better than having to type the parameters by hand and far less error prone.