Easiest way to get a common base class from a collection of types

Question

I\'m building a custom property grid that displays the properties of items in a collection. What I want to do is show only the properties in the grid that are common amongst

Answer 1

You can do this with a method that keeps checking for common base classes. I wrote up this, quickly, using the BaseClass feature of the Type class. You don't have to use an array, a list or other IEnumerable can work with small modifications to this.

I tested it with:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Common Types: " + GetCommonBaseClass(new Type[] {typeof(OleDbCommand), typeof(OdbcCommand), typeof(SqlCommand)}).ToString());   
}

And got the right answer of DbCommand. Here is my code.

    static Type GetCommonBaseClass(Type[] types)
    {
        if (types.Length == 0)
            return (typeof(object));
        else if (types.Length == 1)
            return (types[0]);

        // Copy the parameter so we can substitute base class types in the array without messing up the caller
        Type[] temp = new Type[types.Length];

        for (int i = 0; i < types.Length; i++)
        {
            temp[i] = types[i];
        }

        bool checkPass = false;

        Type tested = null;

        while (!checkPass)
        {
            tested = temp[0];

            checkPass = true;

            for (int i = 1; i < temp.Length; i++)
            {
                if (tested.Equals(temp[i]))
                    continue;
                else
                {
                    // If the tested common basetype (current) is the indexed type's base type
                    // then we can continue with the test by making the indexed type to be its base type
                    if (tested.Equals(temp[i].BaseType))
                    {
                        temp[i] = temp[i].BaseType;
                        continue;
                    }
                    // If the tested type is the indexed type's base type, then we need to change all indexed types
                    // before the current type (which are all identical) to be that base type and restart this loop
                    else if (tested.BaseType.Equals(temp[i]))
                    {
                        for (int j = 0; j <= i - 1; j++)
                        {
                            temp[j] = temp[j].BaseType;
                        }

                        checkPass = false;
                        break;
                    }
                    // The indexed type and the tested type are not related
                    // So make everything from index 0 up to and including the current indexed type to be their base type
                    // because the common base type must be further back
                    else
                    {
                        for (int j = 0; j <= i; j++)
                        {
                            temp[j] = temp[j].BaseType;
                        }

                        checkPass = false;
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }

            // If execution has reached here and checkPass is true, we have found our common base type, 
            // if checkPass is false, the process starts over with the modified types
        }

        // There's always at least object
        return tested;
    }