How can I get rid of the reflection invoke in this piece of code?

Question

I'm building a simple "bus" as a proof of concept. I do not need anything complicated but am wondering how best to optimise the following piece of code. I'm using Autofac as a container to resolve commands as open generics but actually executing the commands is currently being done via reflection as the incoming command cannot be cast to a concrete type in the code. See code - marked up with // BEGIN // END - this is currently being done with reflection. Is there a way to do this without using reflection?

// IoC wrapper
static class IoC {
    public static object Resolve(Type t) {
        // container gubbins - not relevant to rest of code.
    }
}

// Handler interface
interface IHandles<T> {
    void Handle(T command);
}

// Command interface
interface ICommand {
}

// Bus interface
interface IBus {
    void Publish(ICommand cmd);
}

// Handler implementation
class ConcreteHandlerImpl : IHandles<HelloCommand> {
    public void Handle(HelloCommand cmd) {
        Console.WriteLine("Hello Command executed");
    }
}

// Bus implementation
class BusImpl : IBus {
    public void Publish(ICommand cmd) {
        var cmdType = cmd.GetType();
        var handler = IoC.Resolve(typeof(IHandles<>).MakeGenericType(cmdType));
        // BEGIN SLOW
        var method = handler.GetType().GetMethod("Handle", new [] { cmdType });
        method.Invoke(handler, new[] { cmd });
        // END SLOW
    }
}

Answer 1

How about this (only the changed parts shown):-

// Handler interface
interface IHandles<T> where T : ICommand {
    void Handle(T command);
}

// Bus interface
interface IBus {
    void Publish<T>(T cmd) where T : ICommand;
}

// Bus implementation
class BusImpl : IBus {
    public void Publish<T>(T cmd) where T : ICommand {
        var handler = (IHandles<T>)IoC.Resolve(typeof(IHandles<T>));
        handler.Handle(cmd);
    }
}

The key here is to make the Publish method generic, which means that you get a type reference T to the type of the command, which can then be used to make the cast. The type parameter constraints simply ensure that only an ICommand can be passed, as before.

BTW - I've tested this and it works, here's the full code:-

public static void Main(){
   new BusImpl().Publish(new HelloCommand());
}

// IoC wrapper
static class IoC {
    public static object Resolve(Type t) {
        return new ConcreteHandlerImpl();
    }
}

// Handler interface
interface IHandles<T> where T : ICommand {
    void Handle(T command);
}

// Command interface
interface ICommand {
}


// Handler implementation
class ConcreteHandlerImpl : IHandles<HelloCommand> {
    public void Handle(HelloCommand cmd) {
        Console.WriteLine("Hello Command executed");
    }
}

public class HelloCommand:ICommand{}

// Bus interface
interface IBus {
    void Publish<T>(T cmd) where T : ICommand;
}

// Bus implementation
class BusImpl : IBus {
    public void Publish<T>(T cmd) where T : ICommand {
        var handler = (IHandles<T>)IoC.Resolve(typeof(IHandles<T>));
        handler.Handle(cmd);
    }
}

-- UPDATE --

As pointed out by Peter Lillevold, you should also think about adding a type parameter to your IOC container method as follows:-

// IoC wrapper
static class IoC {
    public static T Resolve<T>() {
        ...
    }
}

this will simplify your caller like so:-

// Bus implementation
class BusImpl : IBus {
    public void Publish<T>(T cmd) where T : ICommand {
        var handler = IoC.Resolve<IHandles<T>>();
        handler.Handle(cmd);
    }
}

This is a side point to your original question, but would seem a sensible design for the IOC interface.

Answer 2

Does this work? Your IoC is returning object, consider returning T instead then you wont have to handle type ambiguity as done below.

public void Publish(ICommand cmd) {
    var cmdType = cmd.GetType();
    var handler = IoC.Resolve(typeof(IHandles<>).MakeGenericType(cmdType)) as IHandles<ICommand>;
    if (handler != null)
    {
        // BEGIN SLOW
        handler.Handle(command);
        // END SLOW
    }
    //else throw some exception
}