Question

I’m looking for way to get something like this:

string _col1 = "first name";
string _name;
var query = from c in ctx.Customers select c;
_name = query.FirstOrDefault().[_name];

As far as I can see I can only get strongly typed field names but I would like to provide them as string variables.

Answer 1

I’m not sure if EF provides you with a way to get a property value based on the string name of the property, but you can use reflection.

string name = typeof(Customer)
    .GetProperty("first name")
    .GetValue(query.First(), null) as string;

I’m guessing the EF class you’re dealing with is called Customer.