Introduction

Type Script already provide decorators to help developers implement reflection.
If we use the technique decorators, we have to add decorators on the target class during developing.
But is there a way to find members of a specific instance?

Here is a code to reflect an object instance by using JSON functions.
The limitations:

• Must provide an class instance
• Cannot find members which have not be initialed.
• Cannot find the class of a member
• Only can provide typeof and isArray attributes.

Source Code

• Source

export class ReflectMemberInfo {
    constructor(public name:string, public type: string, public isArray: boolean) {
    }
}

export class WeekReflector {
    members: ReflectMemberInfo[] = [];
    reflect(obj: any): void {
        JSON.stringify(obj, (key, value) => {
            if (key == '') {
                // it is the root object
                return value;
            }

            var isArray = (value instanceof Array);
            this.members.push(new ReflectMemberInfo(key, typeof(value), isArray));
            return null;
        });
    }
}

// Test
class TestObject {
    memberBoolean: boolean = false;
    memberNumber: number = 1;
    memberString: string = "Jack";
    // memberSymbol: Symbol = Symbol();
    memberUndefined?: string = undefined; // type is undefined
    memberNull: string | null = null;   // type is object
    memberCannotFound: string;      // cannot be reflected
    memberObject: TestNestedObject = new TestNestedObject();
    // type is object
    memberStringArray: string[] = ["A", "B", "C"];      
    // type is object
    memberObjectArray: TestNestedObject[] = [new TestNestedObject(), new TestNestedObject()];
    // type is function
    memberFunction: Function = () => {};
    // cannot be reflected
    public normalFunc(): any {
        return null;
    }
    
}

class TestNestedObject {
    nestedNumber: number = 2;
    nestedString: string = "Mike";
    nestedNull: string | null = null;
    nestedUndefined?: string = undefined;
    nestedStringArray: string[] = ["A", "B", "C"];
}

var reflector = new WeekReflector();
reflector.reflect(new TestObject());
console.log(reflector.members);

• Result

[ ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberBoolean', type: 'boolean', isArray: false },
  ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberNumber', type: 'number', isArray: false },
  ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberString', type: 'string', isArray: false },
  ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberUndefined', type: 'undefined', isArray: false },
  ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberNull', type: 'object', isArray: false },
  ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberObject', type: 'object', isArray: false },
  ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberStringArray', type: 'object', isArray: true },
  ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberObjectArray', type: 'object', isArray: true },
  ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberFunction', type: 'function', isArray: false } ]