C# IList iteration

Question

I have an IList that holds an object that has fields name, Id, location, store, person, and amount. I don't want to have to retrieve the values for all of these fields by writing a statement for each property

ex.

IList<CutDetail> btiCollection;
btiCollection[0].Id
btiCollection[0].location

Is there anyway that I can iterate through this list and retrieve the data within their fields without having to specifically name what they are? Any assistance would be appreciated.

What are you trying to do? There are many scenarios (serialization, data binding) where you DON'T need to specify the names if you use the proper mechanism — Panagiotis Kanavos, Jul 05 '13 at 12:03
i'm just trying to places the values that come from these fields into a string variable. — bluesky, Jul 05 '13 at 12:15

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 05 '13 at 12:12

If you want to retrieve the value of all properties of the item you can use Reflection to create a list of functions that retrieves the property values:

List<Person> people = new List<Person>();
people.Add(new Person() {Id = 3, Location = "XYZ"});

var properties = (from prop in typeof (Person).GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance)
                    let parameter = Expression.Parameter(typeof (Person), "obj")
                    let property = Expression.Property(parameter, prop) 
                    let lambda = Expression.Lambda<Func<Person, object>>(Expression.Convert(property, typeof(object)), parameter).Compile()
                    select
                    new
                        {
                            Getter = lambda,
                            Name = prop.Name
                        }).ToArray();


foreach (var person in people)
{
    foreach (var property in properties)
    {
        string name = property.Name;
        object value = property.Getter(person);
        //do something with property name / property value combination.

    }
}

The property value can also be retrieved using reflection, but this is considerably slower and might become noticable if you have a very long list/many properties.

Now I just have to get a firm grasp of what its doing. – bluesky Jul 05 '13 at 12:33 — bluesky, Jul 05 '13 at 12:33

score -3 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 05 '13 at 11:58

-3

use List<CutDetail>instead of IList<CutDetail>

answered Jul 05 '13 at 11:58

Manish Sharma

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Sorry, but IList is more resilient than rigid List – Dmitry Bychenko Jul 05 '13 at 12:08

C# IList iteration

2 Answers2