Writing to XML with anonymous types?

Question

Right now, I'm reading an XML document and pass its main elements to the method below. This method then returns the relevant elements in a IEnumerable, which is used to update a DataGridView.

private IEnumerable<object> readRelease(IEnumerable<XElement> release)
{
    return (
        from r in release
        select new
        {
            Release = r.Attribute("id").Value
            //etc.
        });
}

For the DataGridView, this method works well, but what if I want to write these elements to an XML file or, more broadly, just want to access a particular variable (e.g. "Release"). Can I then still use this method or should I go for something else?

possible duplicate of [Accessing C# Anonymous Type Objects](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/713521/accessing-c-sharp-anonymous-type-objects) — nawfal, Jun 28 '14 at 08:55

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 03 '12 at 00:18

2

Kai is correct, however I'd like to point out that another option would be to use dynamic instead of object if your c# compiler supports it. Then you can access properties and these will be resolved at the run-time. But as mentioned, in your scenario you most likely will be better off defining a new type.

answered Feb 03 '12 at 00:18

Andrew Savinykh

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For some reason I always feel dirty when using dynamic in a situation like this. – Chris Feb 03 '12 at 05:08

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 09:59

1

There's another SO question about a dirty hack that allows you to access anonymous types outside a method but nobody would recommend using it:

Accessing C# Anonymous Type Objects

If you need to access particular variables outside of the method it would probably be a better idea to define a new type instead of using an anonymous one.

edited May 23 '17 at 09:59

Community

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answered Feb 02 '12 at 23:52

Kai G

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Writing to XML with anonymous types?

2 Answers2