Populating a list box with variable names from LINQ generated class

Question

I'm quite new to Visual Basic - using Visual Studio 2008 and can't seem to find a way to do the following:

I have a few tables in a SQL Server database and have used LINQ to SQL to create classes of those tables.

Here's a cut down example of what I'd like: listbox1 filled with table names - APS, SMPS, WCPC, CFLAPS Then from the SelectedIndexChanged event, listbox2 should populate column headers of the selected table.

I have no issues getting data from the database, and can access all of these headers through the anonymous type objects created from a LINQ query (eg APS.ID, APS.count etc), but populating a listbox with these variable names rather than the data inside them seems rather elusive.

This is probably a cross platform coding question rather than VB specific, so if you have a solution in C# or whatever I'd be happy if you could let me know.

Answer 1

What I would suggest is using reflection to find the name of each property. I found this C# example you may find useful.

Answer 2

What you probably need here is to analyze an expression tree. Basically, if you have a LINQ to SQL query, you get an IQueryable object that has the "expression" property. This property should provide you the info about your anonymous types and their properties. Here is a good starting point for you (yes, it's written for C#, but it works for VB as well): http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie/archive/2008/01/31/expression-tree-basics.aspx