C# Cookbook

12.3. Finding Overridden Methods

Problem

You have an inheritance hierarchy that is several levels deep and has many virtual and overridden methods. You need to determine which method in a derived class overrides what method in one of many possible base classes.

Solution

Use the MethodInfo.GetBaseDefinition method to determine which method is overridden in what base class. The following overloaded method, FindMethodOverrides, examines all of the static and public instance methods in a class and displays which methods override their respective base class methods. This method also determines which base class the overridden method is in. This overloaded method accepts an assembly path and name along with a type name in which to find overriding methods. Note that the typeName parameter must be the fully qualified type name (i.e., the complete namespace hierarchy, followed by any containing classes, followed by the type name you are querying):

public void FindMethodOverrides(string asmPath, string typeName) { Assembly asm = Assembly.LoadFrom(asmPath); Type asmType = asm.GetType(typeName); Console.WriteLine("---[" + asmType.FullName + "]---"); // get the methods that match this type MethodInfo[] methods = asmType.GetMethods(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly); foreach (MethodInfo method in methods) { Console.WriteLine("Current Method: " + method.ToString( )); // get the base method MethodInfo baseDef ...