List of C# Expandos

(not to be confused with commandos…)

A growing number of “thin” View-Model classes with the only purpose of being able to strongly type the intellisense in my C# MVC views have started to clutter my solution.

Here is an example of where I would typically create a new View-Model class in which to carry the query results back to the page:

var aa = 
  (from rr in db.RiskRatings
   orderby rr.RiskRatingID descending
   select new
   {
     rr.RiskRatingID,
     rr.RiskRatingName,
     SubmissionCounts = db.Submissions.Count(x => x.RiskRatingID == rr.RiskRatingID),
     SubmissionCountsPercentage = ((float)(db.Submissions.Count(x => x.RiskRatingID == rr.RiskRatingID) * 100)) / ((float)db.Submissions.Count())
   });

Brook Patten (brookp.me) has provided an excellent answer to the following question posed on Stackoverflow: “razor view with anonymous type model class. It is possible?”

An answer which I thought looked exactly the thing I needed to help me in my dilemma of ever-growing View-Model classes.

However, being slightly new to the “Expando” class and loosely typing, I just couldn’t get his extension class to work with the result set from my query above.

Spoiler: that’s because his Expando extension method was written for a single result, ie. FirstOrDefault()

I have now written a new extension that can convert an IEnumerable<object> result set into an IList<Expando>

public static IList ToExpandoList(this object anonymousObject)

Which I call now call here:

var aa = 
  (from rr in db.RiskRatings
   orderby rr.RiskRatingID descending
   select new
   {
     rr.RiskRatingID,
     rr.RiskRatingName,
     SubmissionCounts = db.Submissions.Count(x => x.RiskRatingID == rr.RiskRatingID),
     SubmissionCountsPercentage = ((float)(db.Submissions.Count(x => x.RiskRatingID == rr.RiskRatingID) * 100)) / ((float)db.Submissions.Count())
   }).ToList().ToExpandoList();

The ExpandObject Extension which handles an IEnumerable<object> is openly located here: https://github.com/FrankRay78/ExpandoObject-Extensions/blob/master/Extensions.cs

Thanks Brook for leading the way. And to everyone else, I hope my own extension helps you too.

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