Article
11/18/2011

BindingFlags Enumeration

Microsoft Silverlight will reach end of support after October 2021. Learn more.

Specifies flags that control binding and the way in which the search for members and types is conducted by reflection.

This enumeration has a FlagsAttribute attribute that allows a bitwise combination of its member values.

Namespace: System.Reflection
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)

Syntax

'Declaration
<ComVisibleAttribute(True)> _
<FlagsAttribute> _
Public Enumeration BindingFlags

[ComVisibleAttribute(true)]
[FlagsAttribute]
public enum BindingFlags

Members

	Member name	Description
	Default	No binding flag.
	IgnoreCase	The case of the member name should not be considered when binding.
	DeclaredOnly	Only members declared at the level of the supplied type's hierarchy should be considered. Inherited members are not considered.
	Instance	Instance members should be included in the search.
	Static	Static members should be included in the search.
	Public	Public members should be included in the search.
	NonPublic	Non-public members should be included in the search.
	FlattenHierarchy	Public and protected static members up the hierarchy should be returned. Private static members in inherited classes are not returned. Static members include fields, methods, events, and properties. Nested types are not returned.
	InvokeMethod	A method is to be invoked. This must not be a constructor or a type initializer.
	CreateInstance	Reflection should create an instance of the specified type. This flag calls the constructor that matches the given arguments. The supplied member name is ignored. If the type of lookup is not specified, (Instance \| Public) will apply. It is not possible to call a type initializer.
	GetField	The value of the specified field should be returned.
	SetField	The value of the specified field should be set.
	GetProperty	The value of the specified property should be returned.
	SetProperty	The value of the specified property should be set. For COM properties, specifying this binding flag is equivalent to specifying PutDispProperty and PutRefDispProperty.
	PutDispProperty	The PROPPUT member on a COM object should be invoked. PROPPUT specifies a property-setting function that uses a value. Use PutDispProperty if a property has both PROPPUT and PROPPUTREF and you need to distinguish which one is called.
	PutRefDispProperty	The PROPPUTREF member on a COM object should be invoked. PROPPUTREF specifies a property-setting function that uses a reference instead of a value. Use PutRefDispProperty if a property has both PROPPUT and PROPPUTREF and you need to distinguish which one is called.
	ExactBinding	Types of the supplied arguments must exactly match the types of the corresponding formal parameters. Reflection throws an exception if the caller supplies a non-null Binder object, because that implies that the caller is supplying BindToXXX implementations that will pick the appropriate method. The default binder ignores this flag, whereas custom binders can implement the semantics of this flag.
	SuppressChangeType	Not implemented.
	OptionalParamBinding	The set of members whose parameter count matches the number of supplied arguments should be returned. This binding flag is used for methods with parameters that have default values and methods with variable arguments (varargs). This flag should only be used with the Type.InvokeMember method. Parameters with default values are used only in calls where trailing arguments are omitted. They must be the last arguments.
	IgnoreReturn	Used in COM interop to specify that the return value of the member can be ignored.

Remarks

The flags specified by the BindingFlags enumeration control binding for many operations performed by classes in the System and System.Reflection namespaces. Under the general heading of reflection, these operations invoke, create, get, set, and find members and types. For example, binding flags are used in overloads of the following methods of Type, Activator, and MethodBase:

InvokeMember and GetMethod are especially important.

The binding flags can be categorized by how they identify a type member, as listed in the following table.

Identified by accessibility	Identified by binding argument	Identified by operation
DeclaredOnly FlattenHierarchy IgnoreCase IgnoreReturn Instance NonPublic Public Static	ExactBinding OptionalParamBinding	CreateInstance GetField SetField GetProperty SetProperty InvokeMethod PutDispProperty PutRefDispProperty

DeclaredOnly

FlattenHierarchy

IgnoreCase

IgnoreReturn

Instance

NonPublic

Public

Static

ExactBinding

OptionalParamBinding

CreateInstance

GetField

SetField

GetProperty

SetProperty

InvokeMethod

PutDispProperty

PutRefDispProperty

Note:
You must specify Instance or Static along with Public or NonPublic. Otherwise, no members will be returned.

The following table lists the coercions performed by the default Binder.ChangeType method. This table applies especially to the ExactBinding binding flag.

Source type	Target type
Any type	Its base type.
Any type	The interface it implements.
Char	UInt16, UInt32, Int32, UInt64, Int64, Single, Double
Byte	Char, UInt16, Int16, UInt32, Int32, UInt64, Int64, Single, Double
SByte	Int16, Int32, Int64, Single, Double
UInt16	UInt32, Int32, UInt64, Int64, Single, Double
Int16	Int32, Int64, Single, Double
UInt32	UInt64, Int64, Single, Double
Int32	Int64, Single, Double
UInt64	Single, Double
Int64	Single, Double
Single	Double
Non-reference	By-reference.

Version Information

Silverlight

Supported in: 5, 4, 3

Silverlight for Windows Phone

Supported in: Windows Phone OS 7.1, Windows Phone OS 7.0

XNA Framework

Supported in: Xbox 360, Windows Phone OS 7.0

Platforms

For a list of the operating systems and browsers that are supported by Silverlight, see Supported Operating Systems and Browsers.

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