Question

Is there a way to populate a Dynamic object with Query String parameters?

This is so that my search parameters in the QS can vary without binding them directly to a container object or having to change the signature of the search method.

e.g.

Inbound URL: http://www.test.com/Home/Search?name=john&product=car&type=open&type=all

public ActionResult Search()
{
    dynamic searchParams = // **something magic here**

    var model = getResults(searchParams);
    return View(model);
}

The populated searchParams object should look like:

{
    name = "john",
    product = "car",
    type = { "open", "all" }
}

Any ideas?

Answer 1

One solution can be that you build up an ExpandoObject from the Request.QueryString which is a NameValueCollection.

It’s easy to write the transformation and you can put it inside an extension method:

public static class NameValueCollectionExtensions:
{
    public static dynamic ToExpando(this NameValueCollection valueCollection)
    {
        var result = new ExpandoObject() as IDictionary<string, object>;
        foreach (var key in valueCollection.AllKeys)
        {
            result.Add(key, valueCollection[key]);
        }
        return result;
    }
}

And in your controller you can use like:

public ActionResult Search()
{
    dynamic searchParams = Request.QueryString.ToExpando();

    DoSomething(searchParams.name);  
    var model = getResults(searchParams);
    return View(model);
}

Note: You will need to do some additional transformation to handle to type property which won’t be automatically an array by default.