Obtaining reference to Class instance by string name - VB.NET
- by Jeff Williams
Is it possible using Reflection or some other method to obtain a reference to a specific class instance from the name of that class instance?
For example the framework for the applications i develop heavily uses public class instances such as:
Public bMyreference as MyReference = new MyReference
Then throughout the application bMyReference is used by custom controls and code.
One of the properties of the custom controls is the "FieldName" which references a Property in these class instances (bMyReference.MyField) as a string.
What i would like to be able to do is analyze this string "bMyReference.MyField" and then refer back to the actual Instance/Property.
In VB6 I would use an EVAL or something simular to convert the string to an actual object but this obviously doesn't work in VB.net
What I'm picturing is something like this
Dim FieldName as String = MyControl.FieldName ' sets FielName to bMyReference.MyField
Dim FieldObject() as String = FieldName.Split(".") ' Split into the Object / Property
Dim myInstance as Object = ......... ' Obtain a reference to the Instance and set as myInstance
Dim myProperty = myInstance.GetType().GetProperty(FieldObject(1))
