Question

So I’m pulling some information out of a database and I need to map it to my model’s properties. My first attempt at this yielded a large switch statement which is following an obvious pattern. I am wondering if this fragile code can be expressed in a more dynamic fashion.

foreach (AttributeValue attributeValue in attributeValues)
{
    string label = attributes.First(a => a.ID == attributeValue.AttributeID).Name;
    switch (attributeValue.AttributeName)
    {
        case "TaskSequence":
            TaskSequenceLabel = label;
            break;
        case "TaskStatus":
            TaskStatusLabel = label;
            break;
        case "InstallChangeNumber":
            InstallChangeNumberLabel = label;
            break;
        case "InstallChangeStart":
            InstallChangeStartLabel = label;
            break;
        case "InstallChangeEnd":
            InstallChangeEndLabel = label;
            break;
        case "SubmittedDateTime":
            SubmittedDateTimeLabel = label;
            break;
        case "InstalledDateTime":
            InstalledDateTimeLabel = label;
            break;
    }
}

Basically what I am thinking is “Map labels to properties which have the label’s value + “Label””

Answer 1

You can do that with reflection:

foreach (AttributeValue attributeValue in attributeValues)
{
    string label = attributes.First(a => a.ID == attributeValue.AttributeID).Name;
    string propertyName = attributeValue.AttributeName + "Label";
    PropertyInfo pi = GetType().GetProperty(propertyName, BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance);
    // check for null, if it is possible that property not exists
    pi.SetValue(this, label, null);
}