.NET Reflection set private property

Question

If you have a property defined like this:

private DateTime modifiedOn;
public DateTime ModifiedOn
{
    get { return modifiedOn; }
}

How do you set it to a certain value with Reflection?

I've tried both:

dto.GetType().GetProperty("ModifiedOn").SetValue(dto, modifiedOn, null);

and

dto.GetType().GetProperty("modifiedOn").SetValue(dto, modifiedOn, null);

but without any success. Sorry if this is a stupid question but it's the first time I'm using Reflection with C#.NET.

Answer 1

That has no setter; you'd need:

public DateTime ModifiedOn
{
    get { return modifiedOn; }
    private set {modifiedOn = value;}
}

(you might have to use BindingFlags - I'll try in a moment)

Without a setter, you'd have to rely on patterns / field names (which is brittle), or parse the IL (very hard).

The following works fine:

using System;
class Test {
    private DateTime modifiedOn;
    public DateTime ModifiedOn {     
        get { return modifiedOn; }
        private set { modifiedOn = value; }
    }
}
static class Program {
    static void Main() {
        Test p = new Test();
        typeof(Test).GetProperty("ModifiedOn").SetValue(
            p, DateTime.Today, null);
        Console.WriteLine(p.ModifiedOn);
    }
}

It also works with an auto-implemented property:

public DateTime ModifiedOn { get; private set; }

(where relying on the field-name would break horribly)

Answer 2

If your property doesn't have a setter, you can't call SetValue on it.

Answer 3

You could try to set the backing field and not the property; you should use GetField() not GetProperty().

Kindness,

Dan