Question

I have a list of strings like:

public string TypeOrig { get; set; }
public string TypeAdj { get; set; }
public string TypeClass { get; set; }
public string TypeMsg { get; set; }
public string QtyOrig { get; set; }
public string QtyAdj { get; set; }
public string QtyClass { get; set; }
public string QtyMsg { get; set; }

Based on the row from the db, I populate the strings like this:

switch(fRow["fieldName"].ToString())
{
    case "partType":
        TypeOrig = fRow["original"].ToString();
        TypeAdj = fRow["adjusted"].ToString();
        TypeClass = fRow["status"].ToString();
        TypeMsg = fRow["message"].ToString();
        break;
    case "qty":
        QtyOrig = fRow["original"].ToString();
        QtyAdj = fRow["adjusted"].ToString();
        QtyClass = fRow["status"].ToString();
        QtyMsg = fRow["message"].ToString();
        break;
}

I would like to reduce this to something like this:

switch(fRow["fieldName"].ToString())   
    case "partType": fieldName = "Type";
        break;
    case "qty": fieldName = "Qty";
        break;
}
fieldName + "Orig" = fRow["original"].ToString();
fieldName + "Adj" = fRow["adjusted"].ToString();
fieldName + "Class" = fRow["status"].ToString();
fieldName + "Msg" = fRow["message"].ToString();

Additional Information:

1. There are a few exceptions from the field name in the db, so I cannot simply use the field name and have to use the switch.
2. I also have to populate some non-standard strings for a couple of the fields from the db.
3. I currently have 32 field names and that can grow, so reducing the length of code will make it so much easier to manage. (@Servy’s approach reduced it down to 19)
4. The resulting strings are used in the view.

How do I dynamically set the string name and populate it?

Answer 1

You should refactor your object. Whenever you see yourself prefixing a bunch of fields/properties with the same thing it often manes you should be creating a new type to represent that kind of data.

public class Foo //TODO give meaningful name
{
    //I changed the abbreviations to real words.  If I was wrong, please fix, but
    //as a rule try to avoid overuse of abbreviations in variable names; 
    //it makes code harder to read.
    public string Original { get; set; }
    public string Adjacent { get; set; }
    public string Class { get; set; }
    public string Message{ get; set; }
}

Now back to your first type we can have:

public class MyClass //TODO fix name
{
    public Foo Type {get;set;}
    public Foo Quality {get;set;}
}

Now that we have two objects of the same type we can separeate out the code for populating the object and placing that object in MyClass:

Foo foo = new Foo()
{
    Original = fRow["original"].ToString(),
    Adjacent = fRow["adjusted"].ToString(),
    Class = fRow["status"].ToString(),
    Message= fRow["message"].ToString(),
};

switch(fRow["fieldName"].ToString())
{
    case "partType":
        Type = foo;
        break;
    case "qty":
        Quality = foo;
        break;
}