In 3 minutes, What is Reflection?

Question

Many .Net interview question lists (including the good ones) contain the question: "What is Reflection?". I was recently asked to answer this in the context of a 5 question, technical test designed to be completed in 15 minutes on a sheet of blank paper handed to me in a cafeteria. My answer went along the lines of "Reflection allows you to discover the Methods, Properties and Fields of any object at runtime". In retrospect, my answer explains how you can use reflection, but it does not explain what reflection is. In my view, my answer was sufficient to convey that I understand what reflection is for but didn't go so far as to explain what reflection is.

So please, in the context of .Net, in your own concise words, define what Reflection is. Don't spend more than three minutes answering. Don't refer to the .Net documentation, we've all seen it.

Answer 1

Reflection is the process by which an object can inspect and modify it's behaviour at runtime.

Answer 2

Reflection is the ability to query and interact with the type system in a dynamic way.

Answer 3

Reflection is the CLR's awareness of code-level objects such class names, methods, etc. that is exposed via an API, namely System.Reflection, which allows a developer to leverage the runtime's cognizance of this information in their code.

Rule violation: I've edited this answer from its original form for the sake of accuracy.

Answer 4

Reflection is like naval-gazzing for code.

Answer 5

a form of introspection i.e. the ability to write code that queries code

Answer 6

I like your answer but I would also mention that Reflection is also a way of getting/setting private/protected fields/properties, that would otherwise not be available at runtime.

Answer 7

During compilation of a .Net language, the compiler puts information about the program into the program file. This information can be used by the program itself or by other programs to find out which classes the program contains, what their methods, properties, fields and events are. Classes and their methods, properties and so on can also be used through reflection, even if the other program knows nothing about them before running. This allows different programs to be loosely coupled and makes all sorts of exciting programming possible. Reflection can also be used to build additional classes in running programs or in program files.

Answer 8

Reflection is the Resume of Code.

Answer 9

Reflection is the ability of a program to handle itself as data.