Passing parameters to generic function

Question

I have looked, and it seems that my knowledge level is not sufficient to solve this problem. I am trying to make a method, that will do something on the objects which type is not known on the runtime. I do know that generics is a solution to my quest.

This is what I currently have and it works. Two different objects, but having same properties, so source properties are copied to destinaiton:

var source = dbContext.tbl_person.FirstOrDefault(item => item.PersonID == parameters.PersonID);                        
tbl_personHistory destination = new tbl_personHistory();

//Copy the properties
PropertyInfo[] destinationProperties = destination.GetType().GetProperties();
foreach (PropertyInfo destinationPi in destinationProperties)
{
    PropertyInfo sourcePi = source.GetType().GetProperty(destinationPi.Name);
    destinationPi.SetValue(destination, sourcePi.GetValue(source, null), null);
}

Then I tried to make this a method, so I can use it on many other places:

private static object CloneObjectProperties<T,T>(T source, T destination)
{

    PropertyInfo[] destinationProperties = destination.GetType().GetProperties();
    foreach (PropertyInfo destinationPi in destinationProperties)
    {
        PropertyInfo sourcePi = source.GetType().GetProperty(destinationPi.Name);
        destinationPi.SetValue(destination, sourcePi.GetValue(source, null), null);
    }

    return destination;
}

How do I call this method, how Do I pass it source and destionation so it returns me object with copied properties.

I have tried this (and many more examples):

CloneObjectProperties((dynamic)source, (dynamic)destination);

But none of it works. Any insight is appreciated :)

Answer 1

Surely you want source and destination to be different types?

private static object CloneObjectProperties<TSource,TDestination>(TSource source, TDestination destination)

And then you just call it as

CloneObjectProperties(source, destination);

Also: AutoMapper does this already!

Answer 2

Use different types for source and destination and it probably is also useful to change the return type to the destination type.

private static TDestination CloneObjectProperties<TSource, TDestination>(TSource source, TDestination destination)
    {
        PropertyInfo[] destinationProperties = destination.GetType().GetProperties();
        foreach (PropertyInfo destinationPi in destinationProperties)
        {
            PropertyInfo sourcePi = source.GetType().GetProperty(destinationPi.Name);
            destinationPi.SetValue(destination, sourcePi.GetValue(source, null), null);
        }

        return destination;
    }

Since you don't use the source type you could change the method signature to:

private static TDestination CloneObjectProperties<TDestination>(object source, TDestination destination)