Is it possible to pass in a property name as a string and assign a value to it?

Question

I\'m setting up a simple helper class to hold some data from a file I\'m parsing. The names of the properties match the names of values that I expect to find in the file.

Answer 1

In terms of organizing the code, you could do it in a mixin-like way (error handling apart):

public interface MPropertySettable { }
public static class PropertySettable {
  public static void SetValue(this MPropertySettable self, string name, T value) {
    self.GetType().GetProperty(name).SetValue(self, value, null);
  }
}
public class Foo : MPropertySettable {
  public string Bar { get; set; }
  public int Baz { get; set; }
}

class Program {
  static void Main() {
    var foo = new Foo();
    foo.SetValue("Bar", "And the answer is");
    foo.SetValue("Baz", 42);
    Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}", foo.Bar, foo.Baz);
  }
}

This way, you can reuse that logic in many different classes, without sacrificing your precious single base class with it.

In VB.NET:

Public Interface MPropertySettable
End Interface
Public Module PropertySettable
   _
  Public Sub SetValue(Of T)(ByVal self As MPropertySettable, ByVal name As String, ByVal value As T)
    self.GetType().GetProperty(name).SetValue(self, value, Nothing)
  End Sub
End Module