Question

In the documentation for DynamicObject, there is an example of a DynamicDictionary that allows you to work with a dictionary as if it’s a class with properties.

Here is the class (modified slightly for brevity):

public class DynamicDictionary : DynamicObject
{
    Dictionary<string, object> _dictionary = new Dictionary<string, object>();

    public int Count
    {
        get { return _dictionary.Count; }
    }

    public override bool TryGetMember(GetMemberBinder binder, out object result)
    {
        string name = binder.Name.ToLower();
        return _dictionary.TryGetValue(name, out result);
    }

    public override bool TrySetMember(SetMemberBinder binder, object value)
    {
        _dictionary[binder.Name.ToLower()] = value;
        return true;
    }
}

What I’d like to do is modify the class, so that I can do the following:

public class Test
{
    public Test()
    {
        var result = Enumerable.Range(1, 5).Select(i => new DynamicDictionary
        {
            Id = i,
            Foo = "Foo",
            Bar = 2
        });
    }
}

Questions

1. Is this possible?
2. If yes, how?

Answer 1

It turns out, I was able to solve my problem by using Linq’s built-in ToDictionary() method.

Example:

public Test()
{
    var data = Enumerable.Range(1, 5).Select(i => new
    {
        Id = i,
        Foo = "Foo",
        Bar = 2
    });
    var result = data
        .Select(d => d.GetType().GetProperties()
            .Select(p => new { Name = p.Name, Value = p.GetValue(pd, null) })
            .ToDictionary(
                pair => pair.Name,
                pair => pair.Value == null ? string.Empty : pair.Value.ToString()));
}