Question

I am using .NET 3.5 and need to convert the below select new result into a DataTable. Is there something built in for this or anyone know of a method that can do this?

var contentList = (from item in this.GetData().Cast<IContent>()
                  select new
                  {
                      Title = item.GetMetaData("Title"),
                      Street = item.GetMetaData("Street"),
                      City = item.GetMetaData("City"),
                      Country = item.GetMetaData("Country")
                  });

Answer 1

Easy and straightforward thing to do is to use reflection:

var records = (from item in this.GetData().Cast<IContent>()
                           select new
                           {
                               Title = "1",
                               Street = "2",
                               City = "3",
                               Country = "4"
                           });
var firstRecord = records.First();
if (firstRecord == null)
    return;

var infos = firstRecord.GetType().GetProperties();
DataTable table = new DataTable();
foreach (var info in infos) {
    DataColumn column = new DataColumn(info.Name, info.PropertyType);
    table.Columns.Add(column);
}

foreach (var record in records) {
    DataRow row = table.NewRow();
    for (int i = 0; i < table.Columns.Count; i++)
        row[i] = infos[i].GetValue(record);
    table.Rows.Add(row);
}

Code may not be working up front but should give you a general idea. First, you get propertyInfos from anonymous type and use this metadata to create datatable schema (fill columns). Then you use those infos to get values from every object.