Question

Rather than making numerous overloads of a class constructor, I would like to pass in a Dictionary to dynamically set variables.

// Class definition
public class Project
{
    public DateTime LastModified;
    public string LoanName;
    public string LoanNumber;
    public int LoanProgram;
    public string ProjectAddress;
    ...

    // Project class constructor
    public Project(Dictionary<string, object> Dict)
    {
        foreach (KeyValuePair<string, object> entry in Dict)
        {
            // ie, when the Key is "LoanName", this.LoanName is set
            this.(entry.Key) = entry.Value;   // <-- Does not compile, obviously
        }
    }
}

// application code
...
Dictionary<string, object> dict = new Dictionary<string,object>();
dict.Add("LoanName", "New Loan Name");
dict.Add("LoanProgram", 1);
dict.Add("ProjectAddress", "123 Whatever Way");
Project p = new Project(dict);
...

In the constructor, is there any way to use the Dictionary Key (a string) to determine what class member to set? Can this be done using reflection somehow?

Answer 1

public class Project
{
    public DateTime LastModified;
    public string LoanName;
    public string LoanNumber;
    public int LoanProgram;
    public string ProjectAddress;
    ...

    // Project class constructor
    public Project(Dictionary<string, object> Dict)
    {
        foreach (KeyValuePair<string, object> entry in Dict)
        {
           this.GetType().GetProperty(entry.Key).SetValue(this, entr.Value, null);
        }
    }
}