Type Reflection, Late Binding, and Attribute-based Programming

Summary

Reflection is a very powerful aspect of a robust OO environment. In the world of .NET, the keys to reflection services revolve around the System. Type class and the System. Reflection namespace. As you have seen, reflection is the process of placing a type under the magnifying glass at runtime to understand the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a given item.

Late binding is the process of creating a type and invoking its members without prior knowledge of the specific names of said members. As shown during this chapter’s extendable application example, this is a very powerful technique used by tool builders as well as tool consumers. This chapter also examined the role of attribute-based programming. When you adorn your types with attributes, the result is the augmentation of the underlying assembly metadata.