.NET Reflection: how do I loop through an object that is an array type?

Question

I've got a method that returns an array, the type of which I have stored in a Type object further up. The code I have for this is thus:

Type StoryType = Type.GetType("my.ns.Story");
Type StoryTypeArray = Type.GetType("my.ns.Story[]");

object stories = SomeMethodInfo.Invoke(BigFatObject,some_params);

In this example, I know stories is of type StoryTypeArray, and what I really want to do is something like:

foreach (Story instance in stories) { ... }

However, I can't figure out how to turn the object stories into something I can loop through and pull data out of.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

It's not clear from your question if the Story type is actually known to you at compile time. If it is, the solution is trivial; just cast stores to Story[] and iterate over it as usual:

foreach(Story instance in (Story[])stories) { ... }

This also means that StoryType can be written as typeof(Story) and StoryTypeArray can be written as typeof(StoryTypeArray[]) instead of using the less-safe Type.GetType that you're using.

If the type is not actually known to you at compile time, then you won't be able to write foreach(Story instance..., since that won't be a valid type. If you just want to iterate over the array, then you can do this:

foreach(object item in (Array)stories) { ... }