Best way to get sub properties using GetProperty

Question

public class Address
{
    public string ZipCode {get; set;}
}

public class Customer
{
    public Address Address {get; set;}
}

how can I access e

Answer 1

Jon Skeet's answer is fine, I had to extend his method a bit though, in order to account for derived instances within the property path:

public static class ReflectorUtil
{
    public static object FollowPropertyPath(object value, string path)
    {
        if (value == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("value");
        if (path == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("path");

        Type currentType = value.GetType();

        object obj = value;
        foreach (string propertyName in path.Split('.'))
        {
            if (currentType != null)
            {
                PropertyInfo property = null;
                int brackStart = propertyName.IndexOf("[");
                int brackEnd = propertyName.IndexOf("]");

                property = currentType.GetProperty(brackStart > 0 ? propertyName.Substring(0, brackStart) : propertyName);
                obj = property.GetValue(obj, null);

                if (brackStart > 0)
                {
                    string index = propertyName.Substring(brackStart + 1, brackEnd - brackStart - 1);
                    foreach (Type iType in obj.GetType().GetInterfaces())
                    {
                        if (iType.IsGenericType && iType.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(IDictionary<,>))
                        {
                            obj = typeof(ReflectorUtil).GetMethod("GetDictionaryElement")
                                                 .MakeGenericMethod(iType.GetGenericArguments())
                                                 .Invoke(null, new object[] { obj, index });
                            break;
                        }
                        if (iType.IsGenericType && iType.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(IList<>))
                        {
                            obj = typeof(ReflectorUtil).GetMethod("GetListElement")
                                                 .MakeGenericMethod(iType.GetGenericArguments())
                                                 .Invoke(null, new object[] { obj, index });
                            break;
                        }
                    }
                }

                currentType = obj != null ? obj.GetType() : null; //property.PropertyType;
            }
            else return null;
        }
        return obj;
    }

    public static TValue GetDictionaryElement(IDictionary dict, object index)
    {
        TKey key = (TKey)Convert.ChangeType(index, typeof(TKey), null);
        return dict[key];
    }

    public static T GetListElement(IList list, object index)
    {
        return list[Convert.ToInt32(index)];
    }

}

Using property.PropertyType will get you the property type defined on the obj class, while using obj.GetType() will get you the actual type of the property's instance.

EDIT: @Oliver - you're absolutely right, thanks for noting that. I adjusted the method to allow for generic Lists and Dictionaries. While I don't like the parsing part, I used Marc Gravell's clever idea in this thread to get the indexer property's values.