.NET Common Language Runtime Unleashed

Using Reflection to Obtain Type Information

Reflection is used in the process of obtaining type information at runtime. Much like an AppDomain provides a runtime environment or home for a Thread, the Assembly provides an overall wrapper around the type information associated with an application.

This section illustrates the information that is available through reflection about an Assembly. Although the type is the root of all reflection operations, the Assembly is the home for types. This chapter looks at the assembly and its associated Assembly class first, and then comes back to type and its associated class Type. Next, it specifically looks at that Type class. The Type class allows the programmer to obtain, at runtime, specific metadata about ...