Test if a property is available on a dynamic variable

Question

I think there is no way to find out whether a dynamic variable has a certain member without trying to access it, unless you re-implemented the way dynamic binding is handled in the C# compiler. Which would probably include a lot of guessing, because it is implementation-defined, according to the C# specification.

So you should actually try to access the member and catch an exception, if it fails:

dynamic myVariable = GetDataThatLooksVerySimilarButNotTheSame();

try
{
    var x = myVariable.MyProperty;
    // do stuff with x
}
catch (RuntimeBinderException)
{
    //  MyProperty doesn't exist
} 

I thought I'd do a comparison of Martijn's answer and svick's answer...

The following program returns the following results:

Testing with exception: 2430985 ticks
Testing with reflection: 155570 ticks

---

void Main()
{
    var random = new Random(Environment.TickCount);

    dynamic test = new Test();

    var sw = new Stopwatch();

    sw.Start();

    for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
    {
        TestWithException(test, FlipCoin(random));
    }

    sw.Stop();

    Console.WriteLine("Testing with exception: " + sw.ElapsedTicks.ToString() + " ticks");

    sw.Restart();

    for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
    {
        TestWithReflection(test, FlipCoin(random));
    }

    sw.Stop();

    Console.WriteLine("Testing with reflection: " + sw.ElapsedTicks.ToString() + " ticks");
}

class Test
{
    public bool Exists { get { return true; } }
}

bool FlipCoin(Random random)
{
    return random.Next(2) == 0;
}

bool TestWithException(dynamic d, bool useExisting)
{
    try
    {
        bool result = useExisting ? d.Exists : d.DoesntExist;
        return true;
    }
    catch (Exception)
    {
        return false;
    }
}

bool TestWithReflection(dynamic d, bool useExisting)
{
    Type type = d.GetType();

    return type.GetProperties().Any(p => p.Name.Equals(useExisting ? "Exists" : "DoesntExist"));
}

---

As a result I'd suggest using reflection. See below.

---

Responding to bland's comment:

Ratios are reflection:exception ticks for 100000 iterations:

Fails 1/1: - 1:43 ticks
Fails 1/2: - 1:22 ticks
Fails 1/3: - 1:14 ticks
Fails 1/5: - 1:9 ticks
Fails 1/7: - 1:7 ticks
Fails 1/13: - 1:4 ticks
Fails 1/17: - 1:3 ticks
Fails 1/23: - 1:2 ticks
...
Fails 1/43: - 1:2 ticks
Fails 1/47: - 1:1 ticks

...fair enough - if you expect it to fail with a probability with less than ~1/47, then go for exception.

---

The above assumes that you're running GetProperties() each time. You may be able to speed up the process by caching the result of GetProperties() for each type in a dictionary or similar. This may help if you're checking against the same set of types over and again.

Maybe use reflection?

dynamic myVar = GetDataThatLooksVerySimilarButNotTheSame();
Type typeOfDynamic = myVar.GetType();
bool exist = typeOfDynamic.GetProperties().Where(p => p.Name.Equals("PropertyName")).Any(); 

Just in case it helps someone:

If the method GetDataThatLooksVerySimilarButNotTheSame() returns an ExpandoObject you can also cast to a IDictionary before checking.

dynamic test = new System.Dynamic.ExpandoObject();
test.foo = "bar";

if (((IDictionary<string, object>)test).ContainsKey("foo"))
{
    Console.WriteLine(test.foo);
}

The two common solutions to this include making the call and catching the RuntimeBinderException, using reflection to check for the call, or serialising to a text format and parsing from there. The problem with exceptions is that they are very slow, because when one is constructed, the current call stack is serialised. Serialising to JSON or something analogous incurs a similar penalty. This leaves us with reflection but it only works if the underlying object is actually a POCO with real members on it. If it's a dynamic wrapper around a dictionary, a COM object, or an external web service, then reflection won't help.

Another solution is to use the DynamicMetaObject to get the member names as the DLR sees them. In the example below, I use a static class (Dynamic) to test for the Age field and display it.

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        dynamic x = new ExpandoObject();

        x.Name = "Damian Powell";
        x.Age = "21 (probably)";

        if (Dynamic.HasMember(x, "Age"))
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Age={0}", x.Age);
        }
    }
}

public static class Dynamic
{
    public static bool HasMember(object dynObj, string memberName)
    {
        return GetMemberNames(dynObj).Contains(memberName);
    }

    public static IEnumerable<string> GetMemberNames(object dynObj)
    {
        var metaObjProvider = dynObj as IDynamicMetaObjectProvider;

        if (null == metaObjProvider) throw new InvalidOperationException(
            "The supplied object must be a dynamic object " +
            "(i.e. it must implement IDynamicMetaObjectProvider)"
        );

        var metaObj = metaObjProvider.GetMetaObject(
            Expression.Constant(metaObjProvider)
        );

        var memberNames = metaObj.GetDynamicMemberNames();

        return memberNames;
    }
}

Denis's answer made me think to another solution using JsonObjects,

a header property checker:

Predicate<object> hasHeader = jsonObject =>
                                 ((JObject)jsonObject).OfType<JProperty>()
                                     .Any(prop => prop.Name == "header");

or maybe better:

Predicate<object> hasHeader = jsonObject =>
                                 ((JObject)jsonObject).Property("header") != null;

for example:

dynamic json = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(data);
string header = hasHeader(json) ? json.header : null;

Well, I faced a similar problem but on unit tests.

Using SharpTestsEx you can check if a property existis. I use this testing my controllers, because since the JSON object is dynamic, someone can change the name and forget to change it in the javascript or something, so testing for all properties when writing the controller should increase my safety.

Example:

dynamic testedObject = new ExpandoObject();
testedObject.MyName = "I am a testing object";

Now, using SharTestsEx:

Executing.This(delegate {var unused = testedObject.MyName; }).Should().NotThrow();
Executing.This(delegate {var unused = testedObject.NotExistingProperty; }).Should().Throw();

Using this, i test all existing properties using "Should().NotThrow()".

It's probably out of topic, but can be usefull for someone.