How To Test if Type is Primitive

I have a block of code that serializes a type into a Html tag.

Type t = typeof(T); // I pass <T> in as a paramter, where myObj is of type T
tagBuilder.Attributes.Add("class", t.Name);
foreach (PropertyInfo prop in t.GetProperties())
{
    object propValue = prop.GetValue(myObj, null);
    string stringValue = propValue != null ? propValue.ToString() : String.Empty;
    tagBuilder.Attributes.Add(prop.Name, stringValue);
}

This works great, except I want it to only do this for primitive types, like int, double, bool etc, and other types that aren't primitive but can be serialized easily like string. I want it to ignore everything else like Lists & other custom types.

Can anyone suggest how I do this? Or do I need to specify the types I want to allow somewhere and switch on the property's type to see if it's allowed? That's a little messy, so it'd be nice if I there was a tidier way.

Solution 1:

You can use the property Type.IsPrimitive, but be carefull because there are some types that we can think that are primitives, but they aren´t, for example Decimal and String.

Edit 1: Added sample code

Here is a sample code:

if (t.IsPrimitive || t == typeof(Decimal) || t == typeof(String) || ... )
{
    // Is Primitive, or Decimal, or String
}

Edit 2: As @SLaks comments, there are other types that maybe you want to treat as primitives, too. I think that you´ll have to add this variations one by one.

Edit 3: IsPrimitive = (Boolean, Byte, SByte, Int16, UInt16, Int32, UInt32, Int64, UInt64, IntPtr, UIntPtr, Char, Double, and Single), Anther Primitive-Like type to check (t == typeof(DateTime))

Solution 2:

I just found this question while looking for a similar solution, and thought you might be interested in the following approach using System.TypeCode and System.Convert.

It is easy to serialize any type that is mapped to a System.TypeCode other than System.TypeCode.Object, so you could do:

object PropertyValue = ...
if(Convert.GetTypeCode(PropertyValue) != TypeCode.Object)
{
    string StringValue = Convert.ToString(PropertyValue);
    ...
}

The advantage with this approach is you don't have to name every other acceptable non-primitive type. You could also modify the above code slightly to handle any type that implements IConvertible.

Solution 3:

We do it like this in our ORM:

Type t;
bool isPrimitiveType = t.IsPrimitive || t.IsValueType || (t == typeof(string));

I know that using IsValueType is not the best option (you can have your own very complex structs) but it works in 99% cases (and includes Nullables).

Solution 4:

From @Ronnie Overby response and @jonathanconway comment, I wrote this method that works for Nullable, and exclude user structs.

public static bool IsSimpleType(Type type)
{
    return
        type.IsPrimitive ||
        new Type[] {
            typeof(string),
            typeof(decimal),
            typeof(DateTime),
            typeof(DateTimeOffset),
            typeof(TimeSpan),
            typeof(Guid)
        }.Contains(type) ||
        type.IsEnum ||
        Convert.GetTypeCode(type) != TypeCode.Object ||
        (type.IsGenericType && type.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(Nullable<>) && IsSimpleType(type.GetGenericArguments()[0]))
        ;
}

With the following TestCase :

struct TestStruct
{
    public string Prop1;
    public int Prop2;
}

class TestClass1
{
    public string Prop1;
    public int Prop2;
}

enum TestEnum { TheValue }

[Test]
public void Test1()
{
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(TestEnum)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(string)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(char)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(Guid)));

    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(bool)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(byte)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(short)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(int)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(long)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(float)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(double)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(decimal)));

    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(sbyte)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(ushort)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(uint)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(ulong)));

    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(DateTime)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(DateTimeOffset)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(TimeSpan)));

    Assert.IsFalse(IsSimpleType(typeof(TestStruct)));
    Assert.IsFalse(IsSimpleType(typeof(TestClass1)));

    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(TestEnum?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(char?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(Guid?)));

    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(bool?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(byte?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(short?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(int?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(long?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(float?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(double?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(decimal?)));

    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(sbyte?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(ushort?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(uint?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(ulong?)));

    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(DateTime?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(DateTimeOffset?)));
    Assert.IsTrue(IsSimpleType(typeof(TimeSpan?)));

    Assert.IsFalse(IsSimpleType(typeof(TestStruct?)));
}