👀 Views: 18 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-18

c# reflection exception-handling dynamic-properties C#

I'm updating my dependencies and I've encountered a strange issue with I'm converting an old project and I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer....... I'm working on a project where I need to dynamically access nested properties of an object using reflection, but I'm running into issues when the object structure becomes more complex. For example, I have a class structure like this: ```csharp public class Person { public Address HomeAddress { get; set; } } public class Address { public string Street { get; set; } public City CityDetails { get; set; } } public class City { public string Name { get; set; } public string ZipCode { get; set; } } ``` I am trying to access the `Street` property of the `HomeAddress` object from a `Person` instance. I've attempted the following reflection code: ```csharp var person = new Person { HomeAddress = new Address { Street = "123 Main St", CityDetails = new City { Name = "Springfield", ZipCode = "12345" } } }; var addressProperty = typeof(Person).GetProperty("HomeAddress"); var addressInstance = addressProperty.GetValue(person); var streetProperty = addressInstance.GetType().GetProperty("Street"); var streetValue = streetProperty.GetValue(addressInstance); Console.WriteLine(streetValue); ``` While this works fine for accessing the `Street` property, I need to build a more generic method that can handle arbitrary nested properties. When I try to generalize this with a method that takes a property path as a string (e.g., "HomeAddress.Street"), I encounter a `NullReferenceException` if any part of the hierarchy is null. Here's the generalized method I attempted: ```csharp public object GetNestedPropertyValue(object obj, string propertyPath) { var properties = propertyPath.Split('.'); foreach (var property in properties) { if (obj == null) return null; // Handle null objects var propInfo = obj.GetType().GetProperty(property); if (propInfo == null) return null; // Property does not exist obj = propInfo.GetValue(obj); } return obj; } ``` When I call this method with `GetNestedPropertyValue(person, "HomeAddress.CityDetails.ZipCode")`, it works fine, but if I call it on a path that includes a null reference, like `GetNestedPropertyValue(person, "HomeAddress.CityDetails")`, it crashes. I want to avoid these exceptions and handle the scenario where any part of the path may not exist. How can I modify this method to safely return null if any part of the property path does not exist or is null, without throwing an exception? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Am I missing something obvious? This is part of a larger application I'm building. I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning C#. Is there a simpler solution I'm overlooking? For reference, this is a production microservice. I appreciate any insights! Any ideas how to fix this?