Check if property has attribute

Question

Given a property in a class, with attributes - what is the fastest way to determine if it contains a given attribute? For example:

    [IsNotNullable]
    [I         


        

Answer 1

This is a pretty old question but I used

My method has this parameter but it could be built:

Expression<Func<TModel, TValue>> expression

Then in the method this:

System.Linq.Expressions.MemberExpression memberExpression 
       = expression.Body as System.Linq.Expressions.MemberExpression;
Boolean hasIdentityAttr = System.Attribute
       .IsDefined(memberExpression.Member, typeof(IsIdentity));

Answer 2

There's no fast way to retrieve attributes. But code ought to look like this (credit to Aaronaught):

var t = typeof(YourClass);
var pi = t.GetProperty("Id");
var hasIsIdentity = Attribute.IsDefined(pi, typeof(IsIdentity));

If you need to retrieve attribute properties then

var t = typeof(YourClass);
var pi = t.GetProperty("Id");
var attr = (IsIdentity[])pi.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(IsIdentity), false);
if (attr.Length > 0) {
    // Use attr[0], you'll need foreach on attr if MultiUse is true
}

Answer 3

If you are using .NET 3.5 you might try with Expression trees. It is safer than reflection:

class CustomAttribute : Attribute { }

class Program
{
    [Custom]
    public int Id { get; set; }

    static void Main()
    {
        Expression<Func<Program, int>> expression = p => p.Id;
        var memberExpression = (MemberExpression)expression.Body;
        bool hasCustomAttribute = memberExpression
            .Member
            .GetCustomAttributes(typeof(CustomAttribute), false).Length > 0;
    }
}

Answer 4

If you are trying to do that in a Portable Class Library PCL (like me), then here is how you can do it :)

public class Foo
{
   public string A {get;set;}

   [Special]
   public string B {get;set;}   
}

var type = typeof(Foo);

var specialProperties = type.GetRuntimeProperties()
     .Where(pi => pi.PropertyType == typeof (string) 
      && pi.GetCustomAttributes<Special>(true).Any());

You can then check on the number of properties that have this special property if you need to.

Answer 5

This can now be done without expression trees and extension methods in a type safe manner with the new C# feature nameof() like this:

Attribute.IsDefined(typeof(YourClass).GetProperty(nameof(YourClass.Id)), typeof(IsIdentity));

nameof() was introduced in C# 6

Answer 6

To update and/or enhance the answer by @Hans Passant I would separate the retrieval of the property into an extension method. This has the added benefit of removing the nasty magic string in the method GetProperty()

public static class PropertyHelper<T>
{
    public static PropertyInfo GetProperty<TValue>(
        Expression<Func<T, TValue>> selector)
    {
        Expression body = selector;
        if (body is LambdaExpression)
        {
            body = ((LambdaExpression)body).Body;
        }
        switch (body.NodeType)
        {
            case ExpressionType.MemberAccess:
                return (PropertyInfo)((MemberExpression)body).Member;
            default:
                throw new InvalidOperationException();
        }
    }
}

Your test is then reduced to two lines

var property = PropertyHelper<MyClass>.GetProperty(x => x.MyProperty);
Attribute.IsDefined(property, typeof(MyPropertyAttribute));