string to variable name

Question

I have class(Customer) which holds more than 200 string variables as property. I\'m using method with parameter of key and value. I trying to supply key and value from xml f

Answer 1

Well, you can use Type.GetProperty(name) to get a PropertyInfo, then call GetValue.

For example:

// There may already be a field for this somewhere in the framework...
private static readonly object[] EmptyArray = new object[0];

...

PropertyInfo prop = typeof(Customer).GetProperty(item.key);
if (prop == null)
{
    // Eek! Throw an exception or whatever...
    // You might also want to check the property type
    // and that it's readable
}
string value = (string) prop.GetValue(customer, EmptyArray);
template.SetTemplateAttribute(item.key, value);

Note that if you do this a lot you may want to convert the properties into Func delegate instances - that will be much faster, but more complicated. See my blog post about creating delegates via reflection for more information.