Creating an anonymous type dynamically??

Question

I wanna create an anonymous type that i can set the property name dynamically. it doesn't have to be an anonymous type. All i want to achieve is set any objects property names dynamically. It can be ExpandoObject etc. But dictionary will not work for me. What are your suggestions? thanks a lot

Answer 1

Only ExpandoObject can have dynamic properties (also see Jon Skeet's comment below).

Edit: Here is an example of Expand Object usage (from its MSDN description):

dynamic sampleObject = new ExpandoObject();
sampleObject.Test = "Dynamic Property"; // Setting dynamic property.
Console.WriteLine(sampleObject.test);
Console.WriteLine(sampleObject.test.GetType());
// This code example produces the following output:
// Dynamic Property
// System.String

dynamic test = new ExpandoObject();
((IDictionary<string, object>)test).Add("DynamicProperty", 5);
Console.WriteLine(test.DynamicProperty);

Answer 2

You can cast ExpandoObject to a dictionary and populate it that way, then the keys that you set will appear as property names on the ExpandoObject...

dynamic data = new ExpandoObject();

IDictionary<string, object> dictionary = (IDictionary<string, object>)data;
dictionary.Add("FirstName", "Bob");
dictionary.Add("LastName", "Smith");

Console.WriteLine(data.FirstName + " " + data.LastName);