Can I use an anonymous type in a List<T> instead of a helper class?

Question

I need a list with some objects for calculation.

my current code looks like this

private class HelperClass
{
    public DateTime TheDate {get;set;}
    public TimeSpan TheDuration {get;set;}
    public bool Enabled {get;set;}
}

private TimeSpan TheMethod()
{
    // create entries for every date
    var items = new List<HelperClass>();
    foreach(DateTime d in GetAllDatesOrdered())
    {
        items.Add(new HelperClass { TheDate = d, Enabled = GetEnabled(d), });
    }

    // calculate the duration for every entry
    for (int i = 0; i < items.Count; i++)
    {
        var item = items[i];
        if (i == items.Count -1) // the last one
            item.TheDuration = DateTime.Now - item.TheDate;
        else
            item.TheDuration = items[i+1].TheDate - item.TheDate;
    }

    // calculate the total duration and return the result
    var result = TimeSpan.Zero;
    foreach(var item in items.Where(x => x.Enabled))
        result = result.Add(item.TheDuration);
    return result;
}

Now I find it a bit ugly just to introduce a type for my calculation (HelperClass). My first approach was to use Tuple<DateTime, TimeSpan, bool> like I usually do this but since I need to modify the TimeSpan after creating the instance I can't use Tuple since Tuple.ItemX is readonly.

I thought about an anonymous type, but I can't figure out how to init my List

var item1 = new { TheDate = DateTime.Now,
                  TheDuration = TimeSpan.Zero, Enabled = true };

var items = new List<?>(); // How to declare this ???
items.Add(item1);

Answer 1

You could do it with LINQ like:

var itemsWithoutDuration = GetAllDatesOrdered()
    .Select(d => new { TheDate = d, Enabled = GetEnabled(d) })
    .ToList();
var items = itemsWithoutDuration
    .Select((it, k) => new { TheDate = it.d, Enabled = it.Enabled, 
         TheDuration = (k == (itemsWithoutDuration.Count - 1) ? DateTime.Now : itemsWithoutDuration[k+1].TheDate) - it.TheDate })
    .ToList();

But by that point the Tuple is both more readable and more concise!

Answer 2

Using a projection looks like the way forward to me - but you can compute the durations as you go, by "zipping" your collection with itself, offset by one. You can then do the whole method in one query:

// Materialize the result to avoid computing possibly different sequences
var allDatesAndNow = GetDatesOrdered().Concat(new[] { DateTime.Now })
                                      .ToList();

return allDatesNow.Zip(allDatesNow.Skip(1),
                       (x, y) => new { Enabled = GetEnabled(x),
                                       Duration = y - x })
                  .Where(x => x.Enabled)
                  .Aggregate(TimeSpan.Zero, (t, pair) => t + pair.Duration);

The Zip call pairs up each date with its subsequent one, converting each pair of values into a duration and an enabled flag. The Where call filters out disabled pairs. The Aggregate call sums the durations from the resulting pairs.