Dynamically change class call path?

Question

In the code below, is it possible to dynamically call MyFunction() by changing OtherClass1 with strings a and b?

string a = "OtherClass1", b = "OtherClass2";

myClass = new MyClass();

myClass.OtherClass1.MyFunction();

Something like this:

myClass.a.MyFunction();

Tried to dynamically change it but cant figure out how...

@gunr2171 I have not as I'm pretty new to coding. Thanks for the suggestion, ill read up on it. — stackGreen, Nov 15 '22 at 14:43
Does this answer your question? [How to get a property value based on the name](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5508050/how-to-get-a-property-value-based-on-the-name) — gunr2171, Nov 15 '22 at 14:44
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3110280/how-to-use-reflection-to-call-method-by-name — gunr2171, Nov 15 '22 at 14:44

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 15 '22 at 15:18

While this is possible to solve this with reflection, it is not something I would recommend, especially not for someone new to coding. You are opting out to all kinds of protections the compiler will give you, and greatly increase the risk of bugs. But if you absolutely want to shoot yourself in the foot you can check out Get property value from string using reflection and How to Invoke Method with parameters.

My recommendation would be to instead make the two classes share an interface, and use an enumerable to select one of them:

public enum MyClasses{
 Class1,
 Class2
}
public IMyClass GetClass(MyClasses obj){
    return obj switch{
        MyClasses.Class1 => OtherClass1,
        MyClasses.Class2 => OtherClass2,
        _ => throw new InvalidOperationException();
    }
}

this can then be called with

myClass.GetClass(a).MyFunction();

It would be even better to avoid the problem in the first place, but this pattern can be useful in some cases. You could replace the enum with strings, but that would again increase the chance of mistakes and bugs. It is better to parse the string to an enum in some input layer, that lets you do all the data validation in one place, making the rest of the code more reliable.

Dynamically change class call path?

1 Answers1