"Catchall" Properties in C#?

Question

Is it possible to create a "catchall" getter property in C#?

class xyzFactory {

   public static object this.*(string name){
       get { return new name();}
  }
}

In PHP you would write something like

//static getters are new to 5.3, so I didn't put it here.

class xyzFactory{
    public _get($name){ return $name();}
}

Answer 1

No, you can't do that in C#. C# is a compiled language and statically resolves method slots at compile time. It doesn't support passing the property name as string or things like that.

Answer 2

Not in C# 3. In C# 4.0 you could achieve something like this with expando properties and the dynamic keyword.

Answer 3

You could use the property pattern to implement this, as others have said C# won't currently help you implement it though

Answer 4

The closest you can get is overload index operator ([]). At least until C# 4.0 is out

Answer 5

You can achieve this with a hack like

xyzFactory.Instance.Name

where static Instance property is of type dynamic

And make you xyzFactory derived from DynamicObject class.

public xyzFactory : DynamicObject
{
     private static xyzFactory _instance = new xyzFactory();

     private xyzFactory(){}

     pubic static dynamic Instance
     {
          get{return _instance;}
     }

     public override bool  TryGetMember(GetMemberBinder binder, out object result){...}
}

Answer 6

You may be able to do this with LinFu. It uses a dynamic Proxy to allow for Duck Typing and Late Binding, Ruby-style Mixins