How do I use reflection to invoke a private method?

There are a group of private methods in my class, and I need to call one dynamically based on an input value. Both the invoking code and the target methods are in the same instance. The code looks like this:

MethodInfo dynMethod = this.GetType().GetMethod("Draw_" + itemType);
dynMethod.Invoke(this, new object[] { methodParams });

In this case, GetMethod() will not return private methods. What BindingFlags do I need to supply to GetMethod() so that it can locate private methods?


Simply change your code to use the overloaded version of GetMethod that accepts BindingFlags:

MethodInfo dynMethod = this.GetType().GetMethod("Draw_" + itemType, 
    BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
dynMethod.Invoke(this, new object[] { methodParams });

Here's the BindingFlags enumeration documentation.


BindingFlags.NonPublic will not return any results by itself. As it turns out, combining it with BindingFlags.Instance does the trick.

MethodInfo dynMethod = this.GetType().GetMethod("Draw_" + itemType, 
    BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);

And if you really want to get yourself in trouble, make it easier to execute by writing an extension method:

static class AccessExtensions
{
    public static object call(this object o, string methodName, params object[] args)
    {
        var mi = o.GetType ().GetMethod (methodName, System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance );
        if (mi != null) {
            return mi.Invoke (o, args);
        }
        return null;
    }
}

And usage:

    class Counter
    {
        public int count { get; private set; }
        void incr(int value) { count += value; }
    }

    [Test]
    public void making_questionable_life_choices()
    {
        Counter c = new Counter ();
        c.call ("incr", 2);             // "incr" is private !
        c.call ("incr", 3);
        Assert.AreEqual (5, c.count);
    }