This print for content only-size & color not accurate 7" X 9-1/4" / casebound / malloy

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Source Code

The CommonSnappableTypes, CSharpSnapIn, VbNetSnapIn, and MyExtendableApp projects are

included under the Chapter 16 subdirectory.

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T Y P E   R E F L E C T I O N, L AT E   B I N D I N G, A N D  AT T R I B U T E - B A S E D   P R O G R A M M I N G

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8849CH16.qxd  10/9/07  4:27 PM  Page 558

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Summary

Reflection is a very interesting aspect of a robust OO environment. In the world of .NET, the keys to

reflection services revolve around the System.Type class and the System.Reflection namespace. As

you have seen, reflection is the process of placing a type under the magnifying glass at runtime to

understand the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a given item.

Late binding is the process of creating a type and invoking its members without prior knowl-

edge of the specific names of said members. Late binding is often a direct result of 

dynamic loading,

which allows you to load a .NET assembly into memory programmatically. As shown during this

chapter’s extendable application example, this is a very powerful technique used by tool builders as

well as tool consumers. This chapter also examined the role of attribute-based programming. When

you adorn your types with attributes, the result is the augmentation of the underlying assembly

metadata.

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