How does Select statement works in a Dynamic Linq Query?

Question

Hello,

1) I've a Product table with 4 columns: ProductID, Name, Category, and Price. Here's the regular linq to query this table.

public ActionResult Index()
{
  private ProductDataContext db = new ProductDataContext();
  var products = from p in db.Products
                 where p.Category == "Soccer"
                 select new ProductInfo { Name = p.Name, Price = p.Price}
  return View(products);
}

Where ProductInfo is just a class that contains 2 properties (Name and Price). The Index page Inherits ViewPage - IEnumerable - ProductInfo. Everything works fine.

2) To dynamicaly execute the above query, I do this:

Public ActionResult Index()
{
  var products =
                 db.Products
                 .Where("Category = \"Soccer\"")
                 .Select(/* WHAT SOULD I WRITE HERE TO SELECT NAME & PRICE?*/)
  return View(products);
}

I'm using both 'System.Lind.Dynamic' namespace and the DynamicLibrary.cs (downloaded from ScottGu blog).

Here are my questions:

1. What expression do I use to select only Name and Price?
2. (Most importantly) How do I retrieve the data in my view? (i.e. What type the ViewPage inherits? ProductInfo?)

=================== EDIT

1. When I write .Select("new(Name, Price)"), I'm able to pass an object to the ViewData's Model property. Unfortunately, in order to use the Viewdata object, I'm asked to cast the Viewdata to a type. But, I do not know how to determine the type to do the casting.

==================== EDIT

Instead of the ViewData's Model property, I'm using simply the ViewData["products"]. To retrieve the content, I just place a IEnumerable cast before the ViewData, like this:

<% foreach(var item in (IEnumerable)ViewData["products"]){%>
   <p><% = Html.Encode(item)%><p>
<%}%>

There are 2 situations:

1) If I select only one column (for instance, Name), everything work fine. 2) If I select more than 1 more columns (Name, Price), I get something like this

{Name=Soccer, Price=19.50}
{Name=Shin Pads, Price=11.59}

Why I just don't get something like

Soccer, 19.50
Shin Pads, 11.59

================================= EDIT April 02 - 05h47 AM

I've define the GetPropertyValue Method (as your response suggets) as static in a static Class that I called 'HelperClass'. Now, this is the way I try to access the value of Name from my object.

<% = Html.Encode(HelperClass.GetPropertyValue(ViewData["product"], "Name")) %>

I get the following Exception:"Object reference not set to an instance of an object". And, the following line from the inside GetPropertyValue() his highlight.

Line 22: return propInfo.GetValue(obj, null);

Do I need to use new keyword? (where?)

Thanks for helping

Answer 1

1) To generate a new projection type at runtime you can:

.Select("new(Name, Price)")

2) To read values from the object, you need to use reflection:

string name = GetPropertyValue(someObject, "Name");

...

public static object GetPropertyValue(object obj, string propName)
{
    System.Reflection.PropertyInfo propInfo = obj.GetType().GetProperty(propName);
    return propInfo.GetValue(obj, null);
}