LINQ : Dynamic select

Question

Consider we have this class :

    public  class Data
{
    public string Field1 { get; set; }
    public string Field2 { get; set; }
    public string Field         


        

Answer 1

In addition for Nicholas Butler and the hint in comment of Matt(that use T for type of input class), I put an improve to Nicholas answer that generate the property of entity dynamically and the function does not need to send field as parameter.

For Use add class as below:

public static class Helpers
{
    public static Func DynamicSelectGenerator(string Fields = "")
    {
        string[] EntityFields;
        if (Fields == "")
            // get Properties of the T
            EntityFields = typeof(T).GetProperties().Select(propertyInfo => propertyInfo.Name).ToArray();
        else
            EntityFields = Fields.Split(',');

        // input parameter "o"
        var xParameter = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T), "o");

        // new statement "new Data()"
        var xNew = Expression.New(typeof(T));

        // create initializers
        var bindings = EntityFields.Select(o => o.Trim())
            .Select(o =>
            {

                // property "Field1"
                var mi = typeof(T).GetProperty(o);

                // original value "o.Field1"
                var xOriginal = Expression.Property(xParameter, mi);

                // set value "Field1 = o.Field1"
                return Expression.Bind(mi, xOriginal);
            }
        );

        // initialization "new Data { Field1 = o.Field1, Field2 = o.Field2 }"
        var xInit = Expression.MemberInit(xNew, bindings);

        // expression "o => new Data { Field1 = o.Field1, Field2 = o.Field2 }"
        var lambda = Expression.Lambda>(xInit, xParameter);

        // compile to Func
        return lambda.Compile();
    }
}

The DynamicSelectGenerator method get entity with type T, this method have optional input parameter Fields that if you want to select special field from entity send as a string such as "Field1, Field2" and if you don't send anything to method, it returns all of the fields of entity, you could use this method as below:

 using (AppDbContext db = new AppDbContext())
            {
                //select "Field1, Field2" from entity
                var result = db.SampleEntity.Select(Helpers.DynamicSelectGenerator("Field1, Field2")).ToList();

                //select all field from entity
                var result1 = db.SampleEntity.Select(Helpers.DynamicSelectGenerator()).ToList();
            }

(Assume that you have a DbContext with name AppDbContext and the context have an entity with name SampleEntity)