How to access private members and methods

You use the InvokeMember function.

Quick example:
typeof(DataGrid).InvokeMember("RowAutoResize",BindingFlags.InvokeMethod|BindingFlags.NonPublic|BindingFlags.Instance,null,wDataGrid1,new object[] {1});

This is equivalent to wDataGrid1.RowAutoResize(1), which would not normally work because the method is private.

The syntax for InvokeMember is:
public object InvokeMember(
string name, // name of the method
BindingFlags invokeAttr, // Binding flags, see below
Binder binder, // Use null for the default binder. A Binder object that defines a set of properties and enables binding, which can involve selection of an overloaded method, coercion of argument types, and invocation of a member through reflection
object target, // object that owns the method you want to run
object[] args // argument array
);

Why does it work? Because access-modifier based security has no impact on Reflection
Ok, some of you might ask themselves How do I protect my code in libraries and other things I publish? Add this in front of the namespace declaration:

[assembly:ReflectionPermissionAttribute(SecurityAction.RequestRefuse,
Unrestricted=true)]

By setting the ReflectionPermission to RequestRefuse at assembly level, you could prevent all the accesses to private members and if someone tries to access it, it throws 'System.NullReferenceException'. In the above example, at fInfo.SetValue it throws NullReferenceException, because it is able to create fInfo object.


I think this is a greatly useful feature, especially when working with
Microsoft objects that have a lot of nifty procedures all marked with
private or internal or both :)