Where to find base type of a class

Question

One thing that always bugged me, is that I do not see the base type in Visual Studio. I just stumbled on this, because I tried to cast a System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem to a System.Windows.Forms.Control

In eclipse the "intellisense" (or whatever it is called) shows me while exploring the members of a class for each member from which base class it is inherited.

In Visual Studio I cannot see the base class, even if I use the Objectbrowser or the help.

The only solution I found is to use at runtime:

Console.WriteLine(obj.GetType.BaseType)
Console.WriteLine(obj.GetType.BaseType.BaseType)
Console.WriteLine(obj.GetType.BaseType.BaseType.BaseType)
...

until I reach System.Object(). Is there a way to query the base type tree of a class at Design Time?

Answer 1

Use the class view. Press Ctrl+W, Ctrl+C.

The class view will show you the base types and many things besides.

Answer 2

The online documentation / MSDN gives this for every .NET class

Answer 3

Object Browser lists the base-type, interfaces and derived types (or it does for me - it could be one of many add-ons...)

Answer 4

View -> Class View

Usually I just do the "Go to Definition" in the context menu though.

Answer 5

You can use the class view (ctrl+w, c). For types that are not your own, you can use reflector.

Answer 6

While debugging the watch window will tell you what the base class is.

Answer 7

Reflector is a great tool for looking at a classes hierarchy, including it's base classes.

You don't have to have the source code, and it can browse through everything in the framework too.