Loop through public constants in a static class

Question

This SO post talks about properties however I am trying to get at the constants in the following static class:

public static class SpYtMessageConstants
{
    public const int MSG_NOOP = 1;
    public const int MSG_PING = 2;
}

I want to loop through all the constants and get each value values. This is for a unit test to make sure nobody has added the same value twice.

@HimBromBeere if you look at my original post you will see I reference that exact same post. However it is dealing with properties accessing constants not directly constants as is my case. So it is not a direct answer. — TheEdge, Mar 06 '19 at 11:34
If you only have read the other answers also and not only the accepted one, you would have got the solution yourself. Anyway here´s another duplicate: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10261824/how-can-i-get-all-constants-of-a-type-by-reflection — MakePeaceGreatAgain, Mar 06 '19 at 11:38

Dmitry Bychenko · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-06T11:34:26.630

We want static (and public) fields' (not properties) values which can be set at compile time only (IsLiteral) while not being readonly - IsInitOnly

Object[] values = typeof(SpYtMessageConstants)
  .GetFields(BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.FlattenHierarchy)
  .Where(f => f.IsLiteral && !f.IsInitOnly)
  .Select(f => f.GetValue(null))
  .ToArray();

Finally, in your particular case BindingFlags.FlattenHierarchy is redundant, however, it can be useful in case classes are inherited:

public class BaseClass {
  public const int BaseConst = 123;
}

public class DerivedClass : BaseClass {
  public const int DerivedConst = 456;
}

in case BindingFlags.FlattenHierarchy specified both BaseConst and DerivedConst are returned

Loop through public constants in a static class

1 Answers1