C# Variable description function

Question

Hi,

Is there a built in function in C# / .net that will take a variable and describe / output it's contents? In PHP there are the print_r and var_dump functions which achieve this (I realise the inherent difference between C# and PHP, just providing a example of output)

As this is for a logging script it needs to be as lightweight and unintrusive as possible - I'm considering writing a function to do this however would prefer to use a built in if available.

Examples of variables would be arrays / lists of custom objects, dumping out of eventargs passed to an event handler etc. I'd like to take this as far as possible whilst avoiding the expense of reflection.

Thanks

Answer 1

I'm not sure about any built-in dump functionality in C#, but you could simply use Reflection and iterate through a variable's type with MethodInfo, PropertyInfo, FieldInfo etc.

Edit: Yes, I know it's not exactly lightweight.

Answer 2

I don't know PHP, but I guess overriding/implementing ToString() in your class is the closest match.

E.g. for a class Person, you could implement ToString() similar to this:

public override string ToString()
{
  return string.Format("{0} {1}", this.FirstName, this.LastName);
}

This would output "firstname lastname" for any instance of Person.

Answer 3

See my answer to this question for a summary of different ways to get a string representation of an object:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/697216/string-casts/697248#697248

Since you want this to be both very generic and lightweight your best option here is probably Convert.ToString().

Answer 4

There is no built-in method for this, but here is an example to get the fields and properties using reflection:

public static string DisplayObjectInfo(Object o)
{
   StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

   // Include the type of the object
   System.Type type = o.GetType();
   sb.Append("Type: " + type.Name);

   // Include information for each Field
   sb.Append("\r\n\r\nFields:");
   System.Reflection.FieldInfo[] fi = type.GetFields();
   if (fi.Length > 0)
    {
      foreach (FieldInfo f in fi)
      {
         sb.Append("\r\n " + f.ToString() + " = " +
                   f.GetValue(o));
      }
   }
   else
      sb.Append("\r\n None");

   // Include information for each Property
   sb.Append("\r\n\r\nProperties:");
   System.Reflection.PropertyInfo[] pi = type.GetProperties();
   if (pi.Length > 0)
   {
      foreach (PropertyInfo p in pi)
      {
         sb.Append("\r\n " + p.ToString() + " = " +
                   p.GetValue(o, null));
      }
   }
   else
      sb.Append("\r\n None");

   return sb.ToString();
}

Source: http://www.developer.com/net/csharp/article.php/3713886