List of classes in an assembly

Question

I've a DLL assembly, in which there are various classes. Each class has around 50-100 members and 4-5 functions. How can I create a list of all the classes and their respective members using a VB.NET program?

I need to show to the user for performing an operation using a particular class.

Answer 1

Assuming that you've your assembly loaded to thisAsm (in this ex I'm using the executing assembly),

This will get you all non abstract classes:

Assembly thisAsm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
List<Type> types = thisAsm.GetTypes().Where(t => t.IsClass && !t.IsAbstract).ToList();

And this will get you all classes that implements a specific interface.

(Eg. If you need to get only the classes that implements IYourInterface, then)

Assembly thisAsm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
List<Type> types = thisAsm.GetTypes().Where
            (t => ((typeof(IYourInterface).IsAssignableFrom(t) 
                 && t.IsClass && !t.IsAbstract))).ToList();

Once you've this list of items, you can show the members of each type, by calling the GetProperties() and GetMethods() on each member of the types list.

Answer 2

See the documentation for System.Reflection.Assembly.GetTypes() and System.Type.GetMembers()

--larsw

Answer 3

You can get all type that inherits from Form in VB.net:

Dim thisAsm As Assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()
Dim types As List(Of Type) = thisAsm.GetTypes().Where(Function(t) t.BaseType = GetType(Form)).ToList()