There are some cases where we want to call the same method from the getters/setters of the properties of a business object. Within that method we want to differentiate behaviour according to the property that called the metthod. The most straightforward solution is to pass with the method a string parameter with the property's name.
class myBO
{
private int _id;
public int Id
{
get { return _id;}
set { _id=value; PropertyChanged("Id");}
}
private string _name;
public string Name
{
get { return _name;}
set { _name=value; PropertyChanged("Name");}
}
private void PropertyChanged(string propertyName)
{
// Do some work here based on which property called the method
}
}
We can avoid passing the property's name as a parameter and discover that, within the PropertyChanged method. We use the System.Diagnostics assembly to do the following:
class myBO
{
private int _id;
public int Id
{
get { return _id;}
set { _id=value; PropertyChanged();}
}
private string _name;
public string Name
{
get { return _name;}
set { _name=value; PropertyChanged();}
}
private void PropertyChanged()
{
String propname = new System.Diagnostics.StackTrace().GetFrame(1).
GetMethod().Name.Substring(4);
// Do some work here based on which property called the method
}
}
The GetMethod() method returns the method that called this method. We need its name so we access the "Name" property. But why do we select the substring from position 4 to the end? This is because the .NET framework translates the getters and setters of the properties internally to methods named get_PropertyName and set_PropertyName. Since we need to get the property name we omit the "get_" and "set_" and thus select the string from position 4 to the end.
This approach can be used without the Substring() methd in any situation where we need to find out at runtime the method that called another method.
