C# Test for immutable

README.md

From my stackoverflow answer http://stackoverflow.com/a/22251440/360211: An example to back up my comment on how you can use FieldInfo.IsInitOnly recursively to test for immutability.

There may be more special cases to consider like how I have handled string, but it will only give false negatives I believe, i.e. will tell you something is mutable that is not, not the other way around.

The logic is, every field must be readonly and be an immutable type itself. Note that it will not cope with self referential types or circular references.

AssertImmutableTests.cs

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Reflection;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;

namespace ImmutableTests
{
    [TestClass]
    public class AssertImmutableTests
    {
        [TestMethod]
        public void Is_int_immutable()
        {
            Assert.IsTrue(Immutable<int>());
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void Is_string_immutable()
        {
            Assert.IsTrue(Immutable<string>());
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void Is_custom_immutable()
        {
            Assert.IsTrue(Immutable<MyImmutableClass>());
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void Is_custom_mutable()
        {
            Assert.IsFalse(Immutable<MyMutableClass>());
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void Is_custom_deep_mutable()
        {
            Assert.IsFalse(Immutable<MyDeepMutableClass>());
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void Is_custom_deep_immutable()
        {
            Assert.IsTrue(Immutable<MyDeepImmutableClass>());
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void Is_propertied_class_mutable()
        {
            Assert.IsFalse(Immutable<MyMutableClassWithProperty>());
        }

        private static bool Immutable<T>()
        {
            return Immutable(typeof(T));
        }

        private static bool Immutable(Type type)
        {
            if (type.IsPrimitive) return true;
            if (type == typeof(string)) return true;
            var fieldInfos = type.GetFields(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
            var isShallowImmutable = fieldInfos.All(f => f.IsInitOnly);
            if (!isShallowImmutable) return false;
            var isDeepImmutable = fieldInfos.All(f => Immutable(f.FieldType));
            return isDeepImmutable;
        }
    }

    public class MyMutableClass
    {
        private string _field;
    }

    public class MyImmutableClass
    {
        private readonly string _field;
    }

    public class MyDeepMutableClass
    {
        private readonly MyMutableClass _field;
    }

    public class MyDeepImmutableClass
    {
        private readonly MyImmutableClass _field;
    }

    public class MyMutableClassWithProperty
    {
        public string Prop { get; set; }
    }
}