Issue with Introspection and Standard Library Types

Syntec

I am working with introspection and it is working as expected with custom classes but not with (at least some, I have not tested too much) standard library types (classes?) for instance if I have a custom class called MyTCPServer (please note it is not a subclass of TCPServer the name is just for comparison) and it has properties MaxConnections As Integer, Port As Integer and even IsListening As a Read only Boolean. When an instance of MyTCPServer is iterating through fields MaxConnections, Port and IsListening all return with IsPrimitive = True.

If you have an instance of TCPServer primitive types MaxConnections, Port, and Boolean are not returning with IsPrimitive = True, it is always False.

Additionally if MyTCPServer is a subclass of TCPServer it still has the same issue with the primitives. I have tested my serialization code on subclasses of custom classes and they work as intended.

Syntec

The output of the serialization looks like this

#Instance of custom MyTCPServer Class passed (not a subclass of TCPServer)
[MyTCPServer]
    MaxConnections As Integer = 100
    Port As Integer = 5050
    IsListening As Boolean = False
[/MyTCPServer]

#Instance of TCPServer passed
[TCPServer]
[/TCPServer]

Functionally the only difference between the two should be built-in type vs custom type, and they should respond to the introspection in the same way.

Garry

Thanks for reporting this. I’ve confirmed it was a bug in the introspection metadata for VM-created standard-library types.

TCPServer.Port and MaxConnections were incorrectly reporting their field type as Object, which caused IsPrimitive to return False. This has now been fixed across all affected standard-library types, including inherited members in user-defined subclasses.

In the next release (https://feedback.objo.dev/bug/1059):

Port.FieldType reports Integer.
MaxConnections.FieldType reports Integer.
Both return IsPrimitive = True.
Native properties and methods are correctly visible through subclasses.
Standard-library properties, methods and constructors are included in the appropriate declared-member collections.

One important distinction is that IsListening is a computed property rather than a field. Its type is correctly reported as Boolean through PropertyInfo.PropertyType. A serializer that needs all public state should therefore enumerate Properties as well as (or instead of)Fields.