Question

I have a database object (a row), that has lots of properties (columns) that map to form fields (asp:textbox, asp:dropdownlist etc). I would like to transform this object and properties into a dictionary map to make it easier to iterate.

Example:

Dictionary<string, string> FD = new Dictionary<string,string>();
FD["name"] = data.name;
FD["age"] = data.age;
FD["occupation"] = data.occupation;
FD["email"] = data.email;
..........

How would I do this easily, without manually typing out all the various 100s of properties?

Note: FD dictionary indices are same as database column names.

Answer 1

Assuming that data is some object and that you want to put its public properties into a Dictionary then you could try:

Original – here for historical reasons (2012):

Dictionary<string, string> FD = (from x in data.GetType().GetProperties() select x)
    .ToDictionary (x => x.Name, x => (x.GetGetMethod().Invoke (data, null) == null ? "" : x.GetGetMethod().Invoke (data, null).ToString()));

Updated (2017):

Dictionary<string, string> dictionary = data.GetType().GetProperties()
    .ToDictionary(x => x.Name, x => x.GetValue(data)?.ToString() ?? "");