Improving performance reflection - what alternatives should I consider?

Question

I need to dynamically set values on a bunch or properties on an object, call it a transmission object.

There will be a fair number of these transmission objects that

Answer 1

In .NET 4.0 (beta), you can do this with the updated expression trees, using Expression.Block and Expression.Assign - then compile that to a typed delegate; job done.

In .NET 2.0 and above (as Jon mentioned) HyperDescriptor is a reasonable option - it works as a custom PropertyDescriptor implementation, so you just do code like:

// store this collection for optimum performance
PropertyDescriptorCollection props = TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(
    typeof(SomeType));
props["Name"].SetValue(obj, newName);
props["DateOfBirth"].SetValue(obj, newDoB);

This still has a little boxing, but that isn't actually a bottleneck.