Question

Seems like this is a recorring problem for me. I am again having a problem with casting type when I use an anonymous collection. My query from the XML file returns a collection of string values. I am trying to return these values from my data access layer to my business logic layer. Thanks in advance.

    public string[] getCustDetails(string customerId)
    {
        //Pulls customer information for selected customer
        var doc = XDocument.Load("Portfolio.xml");
        var custRecord = from account in doc.Descendants("acct")
                         let acct = account.Element("acct")
                         where (string)account.Attribute("custid").Value == customerId
                         select new
                         {
                             Fname = (string)account.Attribute("fname").Value,
                             Lname = (string)account.Attribute("lname").Value,
                             Ssn = (string)account.Attribute("ssn").Value,
                             Dob = (string)account.Attribute("dob").Value,
                             Custid = (string)account.Attribute("custid").Value
                         };
return ?????

    }

Answer 1

You can’t use anonymous types are either parameters to a method or a return type.

I suggest creating a simple class with the properties you need and use that instead of an anonymous type.

public class AccountDetails
{
  public string FName { get; set; }
  public string LName { get; set; }
  public string Ssn { get; set; }
  public string Dob { get; set; }
  public string Custid { get; set; }
}

public IEnumerable<AccountDetails> getCustDetails(string customerId)
{
    //Pulls customer information for selected customer
    var doc = XDocument.Load("Portfolio.xml");
    var custRecords = from account in doc.Descendants("acct")
                     let acct = account.Element("acct")
                     where (string)account.Attribute("custid").Value == customerId
                     select new AccountDetails
                     {
                         Fname = (string)account.Attribute("fname").Value,
                         Lname = (string)account.Attribute("lname").Value,
                         Ssn = (string)account.Attribute("ssn").Value,
                         Dob = (string)account.Attribute("dob").Value,
                         Custid = (string)account.Attribute("custid").Value
                     };

    return custRecords;
}