Pulling data from Object Array C#

Question

Looking at the above example I'm wondering how I can convert the requestedClass which is of type object into an array for me to read from.

    [HttpGet]
    public object Get(string table, string columns, int id)
    {
        var splitColumns = columns.Split(',');
        var t = new propertyModel()
        {
            gallery = _db.PROPERTYGALLERies.Where(p => p.propertyId == id).ToList(),
            property = _db.PROPERTies.SingleOrDefault(p => p.id == id)
        };

        var requestedClass = t.GetType().GetProperty(table.ToLower()).GetValue(t, null);
        var returnArray = new Dictionary<string, List<string>>();
        var requestArray = new List<string>();

        foreach (var column in splitColumns)
        {
            foreach (var field in StringProperties(requestedClass, column))
            {
                requestArray.Add(field.Value);
            }
        }

        returnArray.Add(table, requestArray);

        return Json(returnArray, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
    }

    public IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string, string>> StringProperties(object obj, string column)
    {
        return from p in obj.GetType().GetProperties()
               where p.Name == column
               select new KeyValuePair<string, string>(p.Name, Convert.ToString(p.GetValue(obj)));
    }

Answer 1

You can just cast it to whatever the proper underlying type is. If the object is actually, for instance, an instance of DataObject[] you can just do:

DataObject[] mydataObjectArray = (DataObject[])requestedClass;

And you should be all set. Keep in mind, DataObject is just a made up class I am using to illustrate the concept. Whatever requestedClass was originally before it was cast as an object is what you will need to cast it to.

Answer 2

It depends on what you know about the object at compile-time. If all you know is that it's an IEnumerable<> , you should be able to cast it like this:

object[] values = ((IEnumerable<object>)requestedClass).ToArray();

If you also know that it always contains Data.PROPERTYGALLERY objects, you could cast the items to end up with a more strongly-typed array:

Data.PROPERTYGALLERY[] values = ((IEnumerable<object>)requestedClass)
    .Cast<Data.PROPERTYGALLERY>()
    .ToArray();