DynamicObject.TryInvokeMember Method
[ This article is for Windows Phone 8 developers. If you’re developing for Windows 10, see the latest documentation. ]
Provides the implementation for operations that invoke a member. Classes derived from the DynamicObject class can override this method to specify dynamic behavior for operations such as calling a method.
Assembly: System.Core (in System.Core.dll)
'Declaration Public Overridable Function TryInvokeMember ( _ binder As InvokeMemberBinder, _ args As Object(), _ <OutAttribute> ByRef result As Object _ ) As Boolean
Parameters
- binder
- Type: System.Dynamic.InvokeMemberBinder
Provides information about the dynamic operation. The binder.Name property provides the name of the member on which the dynamic operation is performed. For example, for the statement sampleObject.SampleMethod(100), where sampleObject is an instance of the class derived from the DynamicObject class, binder.Name returns "SampleMethod". The binder.IgnoreCase property specifies whether the member name is case-sensitive.
- args
- Type:
System.Object
()
The arguments that are passed to the object member during the invoke operation. For example, for the statement sampleObject.SampleMethod(100), where sampleObject is derived from the DynamicObject class, args[0] is equal to 100.
- result
- Type:
System.Object
%
The result of the member invocation.
Return Value
Type: System.Booleantrue if the operation is successful; otherwise, false. If this method returns false, the run-time binder of the language determines the behavior. (In most cases, a language-specific run-time exception is thrown.)
Classes derived from the DynamicObject class can override this method to specify how operations that invoke an object member should be performed for a dynamic object. When the method is not overridden, the run-time binder of the language determines the behavior. (In most cases, a language-specific run-time exception is thrown.)
If this method is overridden, it is automatically invoked when you perform an operation like sampleObject.SampleMethod(100), where sampleObject is derived from the DynamicObject class.
You can also add your own methods to classes that are derived from the DynamicObject class. For example, if you override the TryInvokeMember method, the dynamic dispatch system first attempts to determine whether the specified method exists in the class. If it does not find the method, it uses the TryInvokeMember implementation.
This method does not support ref and out parameters. All parameters in the args array are passed by value.
Assume that you want to provide alternative syntax for accessing values in a dictionary, so that instead of writing sampleDictionary["Text"] = "Sample text" (sampleDictionary("Text") = "Sample text" in Visual Basic), you can write sampleDictionary.Text = "Sample text". Also, you want to be able to call all the standard dictionary methods on this dictionary.
The following code example demonstrates the DynamicDictionary class, which is derived from the DynamicObject class. The DynamicDictionary class contains an object of the Dictionary<string, object> type (Dictionary(Of String, Object) in Visual Basic) to store the key-value pairs. It overrides the TryInvokeMember method to support methods of the Dictionary(Of TKey, TValue) class and overrides the TrySetMember and TryGetMember methods to support the new syntax. It also provides a Print method, which prints out all dictionary keys and values.
' Add Imports System.Reflection ' to the beginning of the file. ' The class derived from DynamicObject. Public Class DynamicDictionary Inherits DynamicObject ' The inner dictionary. Dim dictionary As New Dictionary(Of String, Object) ' Getting a property value. Public Overrides Function TryGetMember( ByVal binder As System.Dynamic.GetMemberBinder, ByRef result As Object) As Boolean Return dictionary.TryGetValue(binder.Name, result) End Function ' Setting a property value. Public Overrides Function TrySetMember( ByVal binder As System.Dynamic.SetMemberBinder, ByVal value As Object) As Boolean dictionary(binder.Name) = value Return True End Function ' Calling a method. Public Overrides Function TryInvokeMember( ByVal binder As System.Dynamic.InvokeMemberBinder, ByVal args() As Object, ByRef result As Object) As Boolean Dim dictType As Type = GetType(Dictionary(Of String, Object)) Try result = dictType.InvokeMember( binder.Name, BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, Nothing, dictionary, args) Return True Catch ex As Exception result = Nothing Return False End Try End Function ' This method prints out dictionary elements. Public Sub Print() For Each pair In dictionary Console.WriteLine(pair.Key & " " & pair.Value) Next If (dictionary.Count = 0) Then Console.WriteLine("No elements in the dictionary.") End If End Sub End Class Sub Test() ' Creating a dynamic dictionary. Dim person As Object = New DynamicDictionary() ' Adding new dynamic properties. ' The TrySetMember method is called. person.FirstName = "Ellen" person.LastName = "Adams" ' Calling a method defined in the DynmaicDictionary class. ' The Print method is called. person.Print() Console.WriteLine( "Removing all the elements from the dictionary.") ' Calling a method that is not defined in the DynamicDictionary class. ' The TryInvokeMember method is called. person.Clear() ' Calling the Print method again. person.Print() ' The following statement throws an exception at run time. ' There is no Sample method ' in the dictionary or in the DynamicDictionary class. ' person.Sample() End Sub ' This example has the following output: ' FirstName Ellen ' LastName Adams ' Removing all the elements from the dictionary. ' No elements in the dictionary.