Question

I’m reading in data from an xml file and have the following switch statement

switch (localVariable)
{
    case "myStringVariable":
        myClass.myStringVariable= subReader.ReadElementContentAsString();
        break;
    case "myOtherStringVariable":
        myClass.myOtherStringVariable= subReader.ReadElementContentAsString();
        break;
    case "myBoolVariable":
        myClass.myBoolVariable= subReader.ReadElementContentAsBool();
        break;

I would like to optimize this into something like

switch (localVariable)
{
    case "myStringVariable":
    case "myOtherStringVariable":
        myClass.localVariable= subReader.ReadElementContentAsString();
        break;
    case "myBoolVariable":
        myClass.localVariable= subReader.ReadElementContentAsBool();
        break;

Answer 1

You could use reflection to take it a step further:

Add the following method to your class:

    private void SetVariableFromReader(string variableName)
    {
        var property = GetType().GetProperty(variableName);
        if (property != null)
        {
            if (typeof(string).IsAssignableFrom(property.PropertyType))
            {
                property.SetValue(this, subReader.ReadElementContentAsString());
            }
            if (typeof(bool).IsAssignableFrom(property.PropertyType))
            {
                property.SetValue(this, subReader.ReadElementContentAsBool());
            }
            // ...
        }
    }

Then, rather than using a switch statement in your code, you just call:

SetVariableFromReader(localVariable)