Question

I’m using object and collection Initializers in the program and thinking how to get the example below.

Orders.Add(new Order()
                {
                  id = 123,
                  date = new datetime(2012,03,26)
                  items = new OrderItems()
                          { 
                             lineid = 1,
                             quantity = 3,
                             order = ?? // want to assign to current order.
                          }
                 }

How can I assign the newly created order to the order item?

Answer 1

What you’re trying to here isn’t possible. You can’t refer to the object being constructed from within an object initializer body. You will need to break this up into a set of separate steps

var local = new Order() {
  id = 123,
  date = new datetime(2012, 03, 26);
};
local.items = new OrderItems() {
  lineid = 1;
  quantity = 3;
  order = local;
};
Orders.Add(local);