Creating an object with dynamic properties in C#

Question

I'm using linq to load a csv file, but because the csv may have any number of columns, the object that it returns will need dynamic properties, and I can't figure out how to do that.

var data = from row in csvData
       let col = row.Split(',')
       select new
              {
                  Field1 = data[0],
                  Field2 = data[1],
                  Field3 = data[2] // etc, etc
              };

If possible, I'd like to name the properties by the name given in the csv file, rather than field1, field2, etc.

Thanks!

Jon Skeet · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-26 11:24:42Z

7

What would you do with this afterwards? If you know the names elsewhere and you're using .NET 4, you could use ExpandoObject - populate it by using it as a dictionary, and then access the property names using dynamic typing later. But if it's all dynamic (i.e. you don't know anything statically anywhere), why don't you just use Dictionary<string, string>?

answered Aug 26, 2010 at 11:24

Jon Skeet

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2 Comments

Jose Luis Over a year ago

Do you know if the ExpandoObject would support intellisense? Say I return an ExpandoObject based on a Dictionary, would that object support intellisense so I can see the property names suggested?

Jon Skeet Over a year ago

@Joze: Not at compile-time, no. I believe there's debugger support though.

Sruly · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-26 11:26:42Z

1

You could just do is simply using arrays or even a Dictionary but if you want to do something cool with Dynamic check out Clay

http://weblogs.asp.net/bleroy/archive/2010/08/18/clay-malleable-c-dynamic-objects-part-2.aspx

answered Aug 26, 2010 at 11:26

Sruly

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