Reflection doesn't show static properties properly

Question

I have a pseudo-enum class that consists of a protected constructor and a list of readonly static properties:

public class Column
{   
    protected Column(string name)
    {
      columnName = name;
    }

    public readonly string columnName;

    public static readonly Column UNDEFINED = new Column("");
    public static readonly Column Test = new Column("Test");

    /// and so on
}

I want to access individual instances by their string name, but for some reason, the reflection does not return the static properties at all:

In the above image, you can see that the property exists and has a non-null value, yet if I query it using reflection, I get null.

If I try to query the property list, I get an empty array:

            PropertyInfo[] props = typeof(Column).GetProperties(BindingFlags.Static);
            if (props.Length == 0)
            {
                // This exception triggers
                throw new Exception("Where the hell are all the properties???");
            }

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You are trying to access fields, not properties.

Change your reflection code to this:

        FieldInfo[] fields = typeof(Column).GetFields();
        if (fields.Length == 0)
        {
            // This exception no longer triggers
            throw new Exception("Where the hell are all the properties???");
        } else
        {
            foreach (var field in fields)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(field.Name);
            }
        }