C# object dumper

Question

I'm looking for a class that can output an object and all its leaf values in a format similar to this:

User
  - Name: Gordon
  - Age : 60
  - WorkAddress
     - Street: 10 Downing Street
     - Town: London
     - Country: UK
  - HomeAddresses[0]
    ...
  - HomeAddresses[1]
    ...

(Or a clearer format). This would be equivalent to:

public class User
{
    public string Name { get;set; }
    public int Age { get;set; }
    public Address WorkAddress { get;set; }
    public List<Address> HomeAddresses { get;set; }
}

public class Address
{
    public string Street { get;set; }
    public string Town { get;set; }
    public string Country { get;set; }
}

A kind of string representation of the PropertyGrid control, minus having to implement a large set of designers for each type.

PHP has something that does this called var_dump. I don't want to use a watch, as this is for printing out.

Could anyone point me to something like this if it exists? Or, write one for a bounty.

Answer 1

You could write that very easily with a little bit of reflection. Something kind of like:

public void Print(object value, int depth)
{
    foreach(var property in value.GetType().GetProperties())
    {
        var subValue = property.GetValue(value);
        if(subValue is IEnumerable)
        {
             PrintArray(property, (IEnumerable)subValue);
        }
        else
        {
             PrintProperty(property, subValue);
        }         
    }
}

You can write up the PrintArray and PrintProperty methods.

Answer 2

Override ToString() method for each class.

Answer 3

The object dumper posted in sgmoore's link:

//Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Reflection;

// See the ReadMe.html for additional information
public class ObjectDumper {

    public static void Write(object element)
    {
        Write(element, 0);
    }

    public static void Write(object element, int depth)
    {
        Write(element, depth, Console.Out);
    }

    public static void Write(object element, int depth, TextWriter log)
    {
        ObjectDumper dumper = new ObjectDumper(depth);
        dumper.writer = log;
        dumper.WriteObject(null, element);
    }

    TextWriter writer;
    int pos;
    int level;
    int depth;

    private ObjectDumper(int depth)
    {
        this.depth = depth;
    }

    private void Write(string s)
    {
        if (s != null) {
            writer.Write(s);
            pos += s.Length;
        }
    }

    private void WriteIndent()
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < level; i++) writer.Write("  ");
    }

    private void WriteLine()
    {
        writer.WriteLine();
        pos = 0;
    }

    private void WriteTab()
    {
        Write("  ");
        while (pos % 8 != 0) Write(" ");
    }

    private void WriteObject(string prefix, object element)
    {
        if (element == null || element is ValueType || element is string) {
            WriteIndent();
            Write(prefix);
            WriteValue(element);
            WriteLine();
        }
        else {
            IEnumerable enumerableElement = element as IEnumerable;
            if (enumerableElement != null) {
                foreach (object item in enumerableElement) {
                    if (item is IEnumerable && !(item is string)) {
                        WriteIndent();
                        Write(prefix);
                        Write("...");
                        WriteLine();
                        if (level < depth) {
                            level++;
                            WriteObject(prefix, item);
                            level--;
                        }
                    }
                    else {
                        WriteObject(prefix, item);
                    }
                }
            }
            else {
                MemberInfo[] members = element.GetType().GetMembers(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance);
                WriteIndent();
                Write(prefix);
                bool propWritten = false;
                foreach (MemberInfo m in members) {
                    FieldInfo f = m as FieldInfo;
                    PropertyInfo p = m as PropertyInfo;
                    if (f != null || p != null) {
                        if (propWritten) {
                            WriteTab();
                        }
                        else {
                            propWritten = true;
                        }
                        Write(m.Name);
                        Write("=");
                        Type t = f != null ? f.FieldType : p.PropertyType;
                        if (t.IsValueType || t == typeof(string)) {
                            WriteValue(f != null ? f.GetValue(element) : p.GetValue(element, null));
                        }
                        else {
                            if (typeof(IEnumerable).IsAssignableFrom(t)) {
                                Write("...");
                            }
                            else {
                                Write("{ }");
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
                if (propWritten) WriteLine();
                if (level < depth) {
                    foreach (MemberInfo m in members) {
                        FieldInfo f = m as FieldInfo;
                        PropertyInfo p = m as PropertyInfo;
                        if (f != null || p != null) {
                            Type t = f != null ? f.FieldType : p.PropertyType;
                            if (!(t.IsValueType || t == typeof(string))) {
                                object value = f != null ? f.GetValue(element) : p.GetValue(element, null);
                                if (value != null) {
                                    level++;
                                    WriteObject(m.Name + ": ", value);
                                    level--;
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

    private void WriteValue(object o)
    {
        if (o == null) {
            Write("null");
        }
        else if (o is DateTime) {
            Write(((DateTime)o).ToShortDateString());
        }
        else if (o is ValueType || o is string) {
            Write(o.ToString());
        }
        else if (o is IEnumerable) {
            Write("...");
        }
        else {
            Write("{ }");
        }
    }
}

Answer 4

If you don't feel like copying and pasting Chris S's code, the Visual Studio 2008 samples come with an ObjectDumper.

Drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Samples\1033\LinqSamples\ObjectDumper

Answer 5

You could use the JSON serialiser, which should be easy to read for anyone use to working with JSON

User theUser = new User();
theUser.Name = "Joe";
System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer serializer = new System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer(myPerson.GetType());
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
serializer.WriteObject(ms, theUser );
string json = Encoding.Default.GetString(ms.ToArray());