I have a Windows Forms designer that writes the created form (with controls) 
as Xml/Xaml. Alternately it reads Xml/Xaml to create form controls in the 
designer form. I am trying to do this using reflection. I can use 
Activator.CreateInstance to create the controls and can set most of the 
properties using just a little bit of code:

info.SetValue(temp, 
TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(info.PropertyType).ConvertFrom(val), null);
where info is the PropertyInfo for the control property that will be set, 
temp is the control, and val is the string representation of the value.

This breaks for some properties like font and the Items collection for some 
controls. It is the latter that I am looking for help with.

The problem is that when I create the new control using CreateInstance the 
control is returned with an empty Items collection. To further complicate the 
matter, the instance is returned as an object. I could simply determine the 
control type and use a switch statement to add each Item to the collection. 
That can lead to alot of code and a lot of maintenance. My goal is to 
populate the Items collection generically using reflection as I am already 
doing for most of the properties.

I can use CreateInstance to create an value object but since the control is 
cast as an object, it does not reveal the Items collection and I can 
therefore not add the new value object.

Does anyone know how to populate the Items collection of a control using 
reflection?

Well I figured out the answer myself. It was far simpler than I was making it 
out. The solution is 3 lines of code:

                    object obj = info.GetValue(temp, null);
                    MethodInfo add = info.PropertyType.GetMethod("Add");
                    add.Invoke(obj, new object[] { val });

I just needed to get the Add method and invoke it.

So now I am working on the second part mentioned below: Font. Not quite so 
simple there. I have looked at the available Font Constructors and it looks 
like I can set the font by creating a new font using one of the constructors. 
It will be a pain to manually write the Font property value with each of the 
subproperty values in the correct sequence. It will be even worse taking the 
comma delimited string and parsing each member to the correct type to be 
rebuilt.

Does anyone know an easier way?

"Tim Pacl" wrote:


> I have a Windows Forms designer that writes the created form (with controls) 
> as Xml/Xaml. Alternately it reads Xml/Xaml to create form controls in the 
> designer form. I am trying to do this using reflection. I can use 
> Activator.CreateInstance to create the controls and can set most of the 
> properties using just a little bit of code:
> 
> info.SetValue(temp, 
> TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(info.PropertyType).ConvertFrom(val), null);
> where info is the PropertyInfo for the control property that will be set, 
> temp is the control, and val is the string representation of the value.
> 
> This breaks for some properties like font and the Items collection for some 
> controls. It is the latter that I am looking for help with.
> 
> The problem is that when I create the new control using CreateInstance the 
> control is returned with an empty Items collection. To further complicate the 
> matter, the instance is returned as an object. I could simply determine the 
> control type and use a switch statement to add each Item to the collection. 
> That can lead to alot of code and a lot of maintenance. My goal is to 
> populate the Items collection generically using reflection as I am already 
> doing for most of the properties.
> 
> I can use CreateInstance to create an value object but since the control is 
> cast as an object, it does not reveal the Items collection and I can 
> therefore not add the new value object.
> 
> Does anyone know how to populate the Items collection of a control using 
> reflection?