Generating a class dynamically from types that are fetched at runtime

Question

Is it possible to do the following in C# (or in any other language)?

1. I am fetching data from a database. At run time I can compute the number of columns and data types of the columns fetched.

2. Next I want to "generate" a class with these data types as fields. I also want to store all the records that I fetched in a collection.

The problem is that I want to do both step 1 and 2 at runtime

Is this possible? I am using C# currently but I can shift to something else if i need to.

Answer 1

Use CodeDom. Here's something to get started

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.CSharp;
using System.CodeDom.Compiler;
using System.CodeDom;

namespace Test
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string className = "BlogPost";

            var props = new Dictionary<string, Type>() {
                { "Title", typeof(string) },
                { "Text", typeof(string) },
                { "Tags", typeof(string[]) }
            };

            createType(className, props);
        }

        static void createType(string name, IDictionary<string, Type> props)
        {
            var csc = new CSharpCodeProvider(new Dictionary<string, string>() { { "CompilerVersion", "v4.0" } });
            var parameters = new CompilerParameters(new[] { "mscorlib.dll", "System.Core.dll"}, "Test.Dynamic.dll", false);
            parameters.GenerateExecutable = false;

            var compileUnit = new CodeCompileUnit();
            var ns = new CodeNamespace("Test.Dynamic");
            compileUnit.Namespaces.Add(ns);
            ns.Imports.Add(new CodeNamespaceImport("System"));

            var classType = new CodeTypeDeclaration(name);
            classType.Attributes = MemberAttributes.Public;
            ns.Types.Add(classType);

            foreach (var prop in props)
            {
                var fieldName = "_" + prop.Key;
                var field = new CodeMemberField(prop.Value, fieldName);
                classType.Members.Add(field);

                var property = new CodeMemberProperty();
                property.Attributes = MemberAttributes.Public | MemberAttributes.Final;
                property.Type = new CodeTypeReference(prop.Value);
                property.Name = prop.Key;
                property.GetStatements.Add(new CodeMethodReturnStatement(new CodeFieldReferenceExpression(new CodeThisReferenceExpression(), fieldName)));
                property.SetStatements.Add(new CodeAssignStatement(new CodeFieldReferenceExpression(new CodeThisReferenceExpression(), fieldName), new CodePropertySetValueReferenceExpression()));
                classType.Members.Add(property);
            }

            var results = csc.CompileAssemblyFromDom(parameters,compileUnit);
            results.Errors.Cast<CompilerError>().ToList().ForEach(error => Console.WriteLine(error.ErrorText));
        }
    }
}

It creates an assembly 'Test.Dynamic.dll' with this class in it

namespace Test.Dynamic
{
    public class BlogPost
    {
        private string _Title;
        private string _Text;
        private string[] _Tags;

        public string Title
        {
            get
            {
                return this._Title;
            }
            set
            {
                this._Title = value;
            }
        }
        public string Text
        {
            get
            {
                return this._Text;
            }
            set
            {
                this._Text = value;
            }
        }
        public string[] Tags
        {
            get
            {
                return this._Tags;
            }
            set
            {
                this._Tags = value;
            }
        }
    }
}

---

You could also use dynamic features of C#

DynamicEntity class, no need to create anything at runtime

public class DynamicEntity : DynamicObject
{
    private IDictionary<string, object> _values;

    public DynamicEntity(IDictionary<string, object> values)
    {
        _values = values;
    }
    public override IEnumerable<string> GetDynamicMemberNames()
    {
        return _values.Keys;
    }
    public override bool TryGetMember(GetMemberBinder binder, out object result)
    {
        if (_values.ContainsKey(binder.Name))
        {
            result = _values[binder.Name];
            return true;
        }
        result = null;
        return false;
    }
}

And use it like this

var values = new Dictionary<string, object>();
values.Add("Title", "Hello World!");
values.Add("Text", "My first post");
values.Add("Tags", new[] { "hello", "world" });

var post = new DynamicEntity(values);

dynamic dynPost = post;
var text = dynPost.Text;

Answer 2

Yes, you can use reflection emit to do this. Manning have what looks to be an excellent book coming out on this: Metaprogramming in .NET.

BTW: why not just use a list containing dictionaries or similar to store each record with the field names as keys?