Get name of property as a string

Solution 1:

With C# 6.0, this is now a non-issue as you can do:

nameof(SomeProperty)

This expression is resolved at compile-time to "SomeProperty".

MSDN documentation of nameof.

Solution 2:

Using GetMemberInfo from here: Retrieving Property name from lambda expression you can do something like this:

RemoteMgr.ExposeProperty(() => SomeClass.SomeProperty)

public class SomeClass
{
    public static string SomeProperty
    {
        get { return "Foo"; }
    }
}

public class RemoteMgr
{
    public static void ExposeProperty<T>(Expression<Func<T>> property)
    {
        var expression = GetMemberInfo(property);
        string path = string.Concat(expression.Member.DeclaringType.FullName,
            ".", expression.Member.Name);
        // Do ExposeProperty work here...
    }
}

public class Program
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        RemoteMgr.ExposeProperty("SomeSecret", () => SomeClass.SomeProperty);
    }
}

Solution 3:

Okay, here's what I ended up creating (based upon the answer I selected and the question he referenced):

// <summary>
// Get the name of a static or instance property from a property access lambda.
// </summary>
// <typeparam name="T">Type of the property</typeparam>
// <param name="propertyLambda">lambda expression of the form: '() => Class.Property' or '() => object.Property'</param>
// <returns>The name of the property</returns>

public string GetPropertyName<T>(Expression<Func<T>> propertyLambda)
{
    var me = propertyLambda.Body as MemberExpression;

    if (me == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentException("You must pass a lambda of the form: '() => Class.Property' or '() => object.Property'");
    }

    return me.Member.Name;
 }

Usage:

// Static Property
string name = GetPropertyName(() => SomeClass.SomeProperty);

// Instance Property
string name = GetPropertyName(() => someObject.SomeProperty);