get field by name

Question

I am trying to create a function that can return a field from its object.

Here is what I have so far.

public class Base
{
    public string thing = "Thing";
    public T GetAttribute<T>(string _name)
    {
        return (T)typeof(T).GetProperty(_name).GetValue(this, null);
    }
}

What I would ideally like is to call:

string thingy = GetAttribute<string>("thing");

but I have a feeling I got the wrong end of the stick when reading up on this because I keep getting null reference exceptions.

Answer 1

First thing - thing is a field, not a property.

Another thing is that you have to change parameter type to get it working:

public class Base {

   public string thing = "Thing";

   public T GetAttribute<T> ( string _name ) {
      return (T)typeof(Base).GetField( _name ).GetValue (this, null);
   }   
}

BTW - you can get property/field value by referencing an instance:

var instance = new Base();
var value = instance.thing;