C# cast to anonymous type

[venil7]

consider the following code:

var test1 = new { field1 = "hello" };
ArrayList al = new ArrayList();
al.Add(test1);
 
//compile error
Console.WriteLine(al[0].field1);
 

an anonymous type is created than placed into ArrayList.
al[0] obviously returns Object, how to cast this back to anonymous type to retrieve value of 'field1'?

[tlhintoq]

just guessing but have you tried...

(var)al[0].field1

or

var Recovered = (var)al[0];
Console.WriteLine(Recovered.field1);

[venil7]

ok, I found the answer:

first we need an Extension class:

static class Extension
    {
        static public T CastTo<T>(this object o, T t)
        {
            return (T)o;
        }
    }

which will add CastTo method to all Objects, then

var v = al[0];
Console.WriteLine(v.CastTo(new { field1=String.Empty}).field1);

the trick is to pass an anonymous object to CastTo which has same signature as the one that we put to ArrayList

[Plater]

Why did you need to do all that work instead of just type-casting?

[oberjuan]

Yeah, at that rate, introspection is straightforward enough.

You should be able to do something like:

f = a.GetType().GetProperty("field1").GetValue(a);