Create anonymous type from string

Question

So I have a anonymous type which I have used ToString on, and put into a file. It looks like this (and remarkably like JSon...):

{ Name = Name, Description = Description, Status = Pending, Key = Template, SubmittedBy = MyName, Identity = 2fb7a40b-e07a-4f1a-a48b-2c2720567f35 }

now I want to go the other way (edit:take the string from a file and put it into a format I can put into a known object) and put it into an anonymous type (which has the same properties, but I don't care if they are castable or anything like that, I just want a quick way to do something like.

AnonObject = GetObjectFromFile(blah);
RealObject.Name = AnonObject.Name;

I only have an interface for RealObject, so I can't add serialisation to the class. If you know a better way, let me know. Thanks.

Answer 1

Anonymous types are defined at compile time, and included in the assembly just like any other type. Creating them at execution time would require dynamically creating types - it's likely to end up getting messy really quickly.

If you're using .NET 4, you could use an ExpandoObject and dynamic ; otherwise I'd probably just use a Dictionary<string, object> and change this:

RealObject.Name = AnonObject.Name;

to

RealObject["Name"] = AnonObject.Name;

(Or vice versa. It's not really clear what you're doing.)