Question

I’m trying to create a Fluent Interface to the Winforms Datagrid. This should allow me to use a typed datasource and easy use of properties of properties (Order.Custom.FullName)

I’m adding the columns on initialization and trying to set the property to use there:

dgv.With<Order>().Column('Client Name').On(x => x.Client.FullName); 

The original question then poses itself when setting the Datasource:

dgv.SetTypedDatasource<T>(IList<Order> orders) 

A big problem here is that Generic Controls are not possible (I guess), so that T cannot be specified for the class, but has to be specified per method…

I want to create a list of anonymous types, based on a given property in a lambda expression:

something like:

ProcessList<Client>(clientList, x => x.FullName); 

Is it possible to do something like this:

[Edit] Note that in practice, the expressions will be set earlier, and will be fetched elsewhere…

public void ProcessList<T>(IList<T> sourceList, Expression<Func<T, object>> expression) {     var list =         (from T x          in sourceList          select new { expression })          .ToList();      // process list ....  grid.DataSource = list; } 

So, I would like to create anonymous types based on the given expression. I know I can evaluate that expression to retrieve the correct properties.

I’m kinda stuck, is something like this possible?

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Well, with a simple call to Select you can come very close:

ProcessList(clientList.Select(x => new { x.FullName }));  ...  public void ProcessList<T>(IEnumerable<T> list) {     // process list ... T will be an anonymous type by now     grid.DataSource = list; } 

(That assumes you don’t need the original list in ProcessList as well. If you do, move the select into there.)