DumpObject with GetFields and GetProperties for instance with nested class

Question 1

OK, I find a way (a workaround) to get all properties (in an XML but who cares) using the code from here:

The output is xml like but acceptable for me. Here an excerpt:

<xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8">
<Camera xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
...
    <ImprintCaptionPos>Disabled</ImprintCaptionPos>
        <SnapshotFile>
        <Directory>\\Program Files\\FrmCamera</Directory>
        <Filename>myphoto</Filename>
        <ImageFormatType>JPG</ImageFormatType>
        <FilenamePadding>None</FilenamePadding>
        <ImageResolution>Medium</ImageResolution>
        <JPGQuality>100</JPGQuality>
    </SnapshotFile>
...

In my code I just have to call

        string s = serialization.mySerialize.SerializeObject<Intermec.Multimedia.Camera>(cam);

To get a 'dump' of all current properties of the instance.

Thanks to all for your help. Possibly I was misunderstood with my question and reflection is unable to give what I want.

Thanks

Josef

Question 2

You simply need to use recursion, and loop back into the method if your property is a class. Here's an example of an XML Serialization routine we use, that effectively walks the properties of a target using reflection, and generates an XElement from it. Your logic would be somewhat different as you're not going to build up XML, but the structure of what you're going to do will be pretty similar.

public XElement Serialize(object source, 
                          string objectName, 
                          bool includeNonPublicProperties)
{
    XElement element;
    var flags = BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public;
    if(includeNonPublicProperties) 
    {
        flags |= BindingFlags.NonPublic;
    }

    var props = source.GetType().GetProperties(flags);

    var type = source.GetType();

    string nodeName;
    if(objectName == null)
    {
        if (type.IsGenericType)
        {
            nodeName = type.Name.CropAtLast('`');
        }
        else
        {
            nodeName = type.Name;
        }            
    }
    else
    {
        nodeName = objectName;
    }

    element = new XElement(nodeName);

    foreach (var prop in props)
    {
        string name = prop.Name;
        string value = null;
        bool valIsElement = false;

        if (!prop.CanRead) continue;

        if(prop.PropertyType.IsEnum)
        {
            value = prop.GetValue(source, null).ToString();
        }
        else 
        {
            string typeName;

            if (prop.PropertyType.IsNullable())
            {
                typeName = prop.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments()[0].Name;
            }
            else
            {
                typeName = prop.PropertyType.Name;
            }

            switch (typeName)
            {
                case "String":
                case "Boolean":
                case "Byte":
                case "TimeSpan":
                case "Single":
                case "Double":
                case "Int16":
                case "UInt16":
                case "Int32":
                case "UInt32":
                case "Int64":
                case "UInt64":
                    value = (prop.GetValue(source, null) ?? string.Empty).ToString();
                    break;
                case "DateTime":
                    try
                    {
                        var tempDT = Convert.ToDateTime(prop.GetValue(source, null));
                        if (tempDT == DateTime.MinValue) continue;
                        value = tempDT.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss.fffffff");
                    }
                    catch(Exception ex)
                    {
                        continue;
                    }
                    break;
                default:
                    var o = prop.GetValue(source, null);
                    XElement child;
                    if (o == null)
                    {
                        child = new XElement(prop.Name);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        child = Serialize(o, prop.Name, includeNonPublicProperties);
                    }

                    element.Add(child);
                    valIsElement = true;
                    break;
            }
        }

        if (!valIsElement)
        {
            element.AddAttribute(name, value);
        }
    }

    return element;
}

Question 3

You have to do the iteration to all inner object members like you did for outer class. Will be an exercise for you to implement it for complete set of .NET types. Below is the pseudo code of simple implementation

void dumpProperties(object target)
{
    if (target.GetType().IsSimple() || target.GetType().IsMethodImplemented("ToString"))
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(target.ToString());
    else if (target is IEnumerable)
    {
        foreach (object item in (IEnumerable)target)
        {
            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(dumpProperties(target));
        }
    }
    else
    {
        foreach (FieldInfo fieldInfo in target.GetType().GetFields(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance))
        {
             System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(dumpProperties(fieldInfo.FieldHandle.Value));
        }
        foreach (PropertyInfo propertyInfo in oClass.GetType().GetProperties())
        {
                  System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(dumpProperties(propertyInfo.GetGetMethod().MethodHandle.Value));
        }
    }
}

Or you can use Cinchoo framework, which has built in function to dump any object.

Console.WriteLine(ChoObject.ToString(camera));