From a UITypeEditor, retreive an attribute applied to the parent of a property in .net

Question

It's not quite as simple as the title says but I hope you understand.

Consider this scenario:

Class MyClass

    Property SubProp1
    End Property

    -TypeEditor(whatever)- 
    Property SubProp2
    End Property

End Class

Class MyButton
    Inherits Button

    -MyCustomAttribute-
    Property MC as MyClass
    End Property

End Class

Next, I put an instance of MyButton into a property grid, expand property MC and edit SubProp2.

From the type editor for SubProp2, I want to get hold of the attribute applied to property MC.

Looking at the context,PropertyDescriptor.ComponentType, we arrive at Type: MyClass. If i look at the attributes applied to MyClass, though, it will only return the attributes applied directly to MyClass, and not the extra attribute applied to the property MC.

I'm struggling to get back to MC so that I can read the attributes applied there. Anyone any ideas?

ETA:

I've answered it below:

Answer 1

If i look at the attributes applied to MyClass, though, it will only return the attributes applied directly to MyClass, and not the extra attribute applied to the property MC.

The attribute added to the MC property are not "added" to the attributes applied to the MyClass class... attributes are static metadata, you won't have an extra attribute on MyClass just because a property of type MyClass has this attribute. There's no relation between the two.

There's no way for MyClass to retrieve the attributes of the MC property, unless you retrieve them directly from the MyButton class, through reflection :

Dim prop As PropertyInfo = GetType(MyButton).GetProperty("MC")
Dim attributes As Attribute() = Attribute.GetCustomAttributes(prop)

But you won't be able to retrieve those attributes using TypeDescriptor, since it can only give you the attributes defined on the type, not on the properties

Answer 2

Actually, further to my comment to Thomas, this is possible without late binding. Here's how:

DirectCast(context, GridItem).Parent.PropertyDescriptor.Attributes.

Voila!