Question

I have some extension methods which could be used like this:

MyType myObject; 
string displayName = myObject.GetDisplayName(x => x.Property);

The problem here is that it needs an instance, even if the extension method only needs the type MyType. So if there is no instance, it needs to be called like this:

string displayName = BlahBlahUtility.GetDisplayName((MyTpe x) => x.Property);

Which is not so nice anymore.

Is there a way to write better syntax for such cases?

What I actually want to do is this (pseudo language):

string displayName = MyType.Property.GetDisplayName()

Which of course does not work with C#.

But what about something like this:

string displayName = ((MyType x) => x.Property).GetDisplayName();

This is also not possible (after a lambda, a dot is not accepted).

Any ideas?

---

Edit:

My “favorite syntax” MyType.Property.GetDisplayName() seems to be misleading. I don’t talk about static properties here. I know that this syntax won’t be possible. I just tried to show in pseudo language, what information is necessary. This would be ideal, every additional stuff is just syntactical overhead. Any working syntax that is close to this would be great.

I don’t want to write a certain extension method. I want an easy, readable and compile time safe syntax, using any language feature.

Answer 1

Have a look at the Express and Reflect classes in the Lokad Shared Libraries. Think they may help out with what you are trying to do. Read more here:

• Strongly Typed Reflection in Lokad Shared
• How to Find Out Variable or Parameter Name in C#?