Attribute.IsDefined doesn't see attributes applied with MetadataType class

Question

If I apply attributes to a partial class via the MetadataType attribute, those attributes are not found via Attribute.IsDefined(). Anyone know why, or what I'm doing wrong?

Below is a test project I created for this, but I'm really trying to apply custom attributes to a LINQ to SQL entity class - like this answer in this question.

Thanks!

using System;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.Reflection;

namespace MetaDataTest
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            PropertyInfo[] properties = typeof(MyTestClass).GetProperties();

            foreach (PropertyInfo propertyInfo in properties)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(Attribute.IsDefined(propertyInfo, typeof(MyAttribute)));
                Console.WriteLine(propertyInfo.IsDefined(typeof(MyAttribute), true));
                Console.WriteLine(propertyInfo.GetCustomAttributes(true).Length);

                // Displays:
                // False
                // False
                // 0
            }

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    [MetadataType(typeof(MyMeta))]
    public partial class MyTestClass
    {
        public string MyField { get; set; }
    }

    public class MyMeta
    {
        [MyAttribute()]
        public string MyField { get; set; }
    }

    [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.All)]
    public class MyAttribute : System.Attribute
    {
    }
}

Answer 1

The MetadataType attribute is used to specify help specify the additional information on the data object. To access the additional attributes you would need to do something like the following:

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.Reflection;

namespace MetaDataTest
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MetadataTypeAttribute[] metadataTypes = typeof(MyTestClass).GetCustomAttributes(typeof(MetadataTypeAttribute), true).OfType<MetadataTypeAttribute>().ToArray();
            MetadataTypeAttribute metadata = metadataTypes.FirstOrDefault();

            if (metadata != null)
            {
                PropertyInfo[] properties = metadata.MetadataClassType.GetProperties();

                foreach (PropertyInfo propertyInfo in properties)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(Attribute.IsDefined(propertyInfo, typeof(MyAttribute)));
                    Console.WriteLine(propertyInfo.IsDefined(typeof(MyAttribute), true));
                    Console.WriteLine(propertyInfo.GetCustomAttributes(true).Length);
                    RequiredAttribute attrib = (RequiredAttribute)propertyInfo.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(RequiredAttribute), true)[0];
                    Console.WriteLine(attrib.ErrorMessage);
                }

                // Results:
                // True
                // True
                // 2
                // MyField is Required
            }

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    [MetadataType(typeof(MyMeta))]
    public partial class MyTestClass
    {
        public string MyField { get; set; }
    }

    public class MyMeta
    {
        [MyAttribute()]
        [Required(ErrorMessage="MyField is Required")]
        public string MyField { get; set; }
    }

    [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.All)]
    public class MyAttribute : System.Attribute
    {
    }
}

This also includes a sample attribute to show how to extract info that was added.

Answer 2

I had a similar situation. I ended up writing the following extension method for it. The idea is to hide the abstraction of looking in 2 places (main class and metadata class).

    static public Tattr GetSingleAttribute<Tattr>(this PropertyInfo pi, bool Inherit = true) where Tattr : Attribute
    {
        var attrs = pi.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(Tattr), Inherit);
        if (attrs.Length > 0)
            return (Tattr)attrs[0];
        var mt = pi.DeclaringType.GetSingleAttribute<MetadataTypeAttribute>();
        if (mt != null)
        {
            var pi2 = mt.MetadataClassType.GetProperty(pi.Name);
            if (pi2 != null)
                return pi2.GetSingleAttribute<Tattr>(Inherit);
        }
        return null;
    }