Question

Hi I am trying to convert a a LINQ query result into a list of objects and I seem to be doing something wrong because I can not acces the properties of each object.Here is my code:

List<Object> productList = new List<Object>();

        var products = (from p in Products
                       join s in SubCategories on p.SubcatId equals s.SubCatId
                       join b in Brands on p.BrandId equals b.BrandId
                       select new
                                  {
                                      Subcategory = s.SubCatName,
                                      Brand = b.BrandName,
                                      p.ProductName,
                                      p.ProductPrice
                                  }).Where(x => x.Subcategory == subcategory);


        foreach (var product in products)
        {
            productList.Add(product);
        }

        foreach (var produs in productList){
            Console.WriteLine(produs.ProductName);
        }

When I try to do this I get an error that says:

Object does not contain a definion for ProductName

The same goes for all the other fields two

Aldo if I try and do this:

Console.WriteLine(produs);

I get tables with the data for each field

I have run this for tests on LINQPAD and it also does not work in visual studio.What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

This is the problem:

List<Object> productList = new List<Object>();

You’re declaring it as a List<object>, which means when you later write this:

foreach (var produs in productList)

Then produs is implicitly typed as object.

The simplest approach would be just to use ToList() instead of copying the results to a list yourself:

var products = (from p in Products
                join s in SubCategories.Where(x => x.SubCatName == subcategory)
                  on p.SubcatId equals s.SubCatId
                join b in Brands on p.BrandId equals b.BrandId
                select new {
                    Subcategory = s.SubCatName,
                    Brand = b.BrandName,
                    p.ProductName,
                    p.ProductPrice
                }).ToList();

Note that I’ve moved the subcategory name filter as early as possible – there’s no need to do it after the join. The ToList() call at the end will mean the result is a List<T> where T is your anonymous type.

Then you can use:

foreach (var product in products)
{
    Console.WriteLine(produs.ProductName);
}