Mapping object to dictionary and vice versa

Sawan picture Sawan · Feb 9, 2011 · Viewed 119.9k times · Source

Are there any elegant quick way to map object to a dictionary and vice versa?

Example:

IDictionary<string,object> a = new Dictionary<string,object>();
a["Id"]=1;
a["Name"]="Ahmad";
// .....

becomes

SomeClass b = new SomeClass();
b.Id=1;
b.Name="Ahmad";
// ..........

Answer

Mat&#237;as Fidemraizer picture Matías Fidemraizer · Feb 9, 2011

Using some reflection and generics in two extension methods you can achieve that.

Right, others did mostly the same solution, but this uses less reflection which is more performance-wise and way more readable:

public static class ObjectExtensions
{
    public static T ToObject<T>(this IDictionary<string, object> source)
        where T : class, new()
    {
            var someObject = new T();
            var someObjectType = someObject.GetType();

            foreach (var item in source)
            {
                someObjectType
                         .GetProperty(item.Key)
                         .SetValue(someObject, item.Value, null);
            }

            return someObject;
    }

    public static IDictionary<string, object> AsDictionary(this object source, BindingFlags bindingAttr = BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance)
    {
        return source.GetType().GetProperties(bindingAttr).ToDictionary
        (
            propInfo => propInfo.Name,
            propInfo => propInfo.GetValue(source, null)
        );

    }
}

class A
{
    public string Prop1
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public int Prop2
    {
        get;
        set;
    }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Dictionary<string, object> dictionary = new Dictionary<string, object>();
        dictionary.Add("Prop1", "hello world!");
        dictionary.Add("Prop2", 3893);
        A someObject = dictionary.ToObject<A>();

        IDictionary<string, object> objectBackToDictionary = someObject.AsDictionary();
    }
}