ASP.NET - ascx.designer 'properties' not showing up in reflection at runtime

Question

Hi, I have a very simple setup, single mycontrol.ascx with assoicated mycontrol.ascx.designer.vb and mycontrol.ascx.vb file.

mycontrol.ascx embeds a single reference to a custom control: "MyMenu":

<mM:myMenu id="myMenu1" runat="server" />

This has created a protected reference in the mycontrol.ascx.designer.vb file:

Protected WithEvents myMenu1 As Global.CustomControls.MyMenu

Now, when I breakpoint the Page_Load() event of mycontrol.ascx, and inspect the members returned from the type via:

Me.GetType().GetMembers()

I cannot any reference to myMenu1. If I look at the control with intellisence, the property is accessible:

Me.myMenu1 

Can anyone explain exactly what I'm missing and what I need to do to access designer created properties at runtime through reflection?

Cheers

Yum.

Answer 1

Your .acsx file creates a separate class (generated by the compiler) that inherits the codebehind class.

GetMembers only returns the members defined directly on the class, not any members inherited from its base class.

You need to get the members defined on the base class, like this:

Me.GetType().BaseType.GetMembers()

Answer 2

what I need to do to access designer created properties at runtime through reflection?

I don't know your menu control but you don't need to grasp the members of the user control, you need to get to the members of the menu control.

myMenu1.GetType().GetMembers()

Besides why use reflection? Doesn't your custom control expose properties with which you can set your settings like

myMenu1.SelectedMenuItem = 3