Question

I have a table that is 200 columns wide and need to return the data of a specific row and column but I won’t know the column until runtime. I can easily get the row I want into either a list, an individual strongly typed object, or an Array through LINQ but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to find the column I need.

So For instance (on a smaller scale) my table looks like this

GrowerKey | day1 | day2 | day3  | day4 |
-----------------------------------------
  3       |  1   |   3  |   2   |   2 |
  4       |  6   |   1  |   9   |   1 |
  5       |  8   |   8  |   2   |   4 |

and I can get the row I want with something simple like this

Dim CleanRecord As List(Of Grower_Clean_Schedule) = (From key In eng.Grower_Clean_Schedules
                                                     Where key.Grower_Key = Grower_Key).ToList

how do I then return only the value of a specific column of that row (like say the value stored in “day2”) When I won’t know which column until runtime?

Answer 1

Something like this (starting with CleanRecord which you defined in your question):

dim matchingRow = CleanRecord.First()

dim props = matchingRow.GetType().GetProperties( _
                BindingFlags.Instance or BindingFlags.Public))

dim myReturnVal = (from prop in props _
                   where prop.Name = "day2" _
                   select prop.GetValue(matchingRow, Nothing).FirstOrDefault()

return myReturnVal