C#: "Pretty" type name function?

Question

The name properties of System.Type class return a strange result in case of generic types. Is there a way to get the type name in a format closer to the way I specified it? Example: typeof(List<string>).OriginalName == "List<string>"

Answer 1

The problem with "pretty" names is they are different depending on the language you are using. Imagine the surprise of a VB.NET developer if OriginalName returned C# syntax.

However, it's pretty fairly easy to make this yourself:

private static string PrettyName(Type type) {     if (type.GetGenericArguments().Length == 0)     {         return type.Name;     }     var genericArguments = type.GetGenericArguments();     var typeDefeninition = type.Name;     var unmangledName = typeDefeninition.Substring(0, typeDefeninition.IndexOf("`"));     return unmangledName + "<" + String.Join(",", genericArguments.Select(PrettyName)) + ">"; } 

This will recursively resolve the unmanaged name, so that if you have something like Dictionary<string, IList<string>> it should still work.

Answer 2

I used CodeDomProvider to convert to c#:

    public static string GetOriginalName(this Type type)     {         string TypeName = type.FullName.Replace(type.Namespace + ".", "");//Removing the namespace          var provider = System.CodeDom.Compiler.CodeDomProvider.CreateProvider("CSharp"); //You can also use "VisualBasic"         var reference = new System.CodeDom.CodeTypeReference(TypeName);          return provider.GetTypeOutput(reference);     }