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How to create a variable based on its type...

First, thank you for helping me.

I need a function that has the following signature and that creates a variable of the passed in type and then assigns that variable to the incoming value and then returns the new variable. This function should do something similar to this:

        
        public Object CreateVariable(string value, string castTo)
        {
            IFormatProvider provider = new CultureInfo("en-US");
            Object obj = Convert.ChangeType(value, castTo, provider);   //Btw, this is wrong.
            return obj;
        }

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Again, thank you for helping me.

SOLUTION

kaufmed

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MichaelDavidCarr

ASKER

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.

The answer to your question might require a bit of explanation.

As an example, assume I have two tables: 1) Drink Categories and 2) Drinks. Further assume I have a 1 to many relationship between Drink Categories and Drinks. Values in the Drink Categories table are "Wine" and "Soda". Values in the Drinks table are: "Coke" and "Soda", "Pepsi" and "Soda", "Merlot" and "Wine", "Chablis" and "Wine".

I am writing a custom csv import facility. Assume in the csv file I have one additional record that I want to import: "Dr. Pepper" and "Soda".

While reading the csv file the values are always strings. But, the relationship between the two tables is of type "Drink Category".

var rec = new Drinks();
rec.DrinkName = "Dr. Pepper";
rec.Category = "Soda";                     // This line is where my question lies!

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Since rec.Category is of type DrinkCategory and it is not of type string, the above line fails.

So, it seems to me that I need to do something like this:

var rec = new Drinks();
rec.DrinkName = "Dr. Pepper";
rec.Category = CreateVariable("Soda", "DrinkCategory");

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Again, thank you for your help.

kaufmed

I want to make sure I have a good understanding of your issue (which I can't really do at work right now), so if no one else chimes in before this evening, then I'll respond back with some suggestions.

SOLUTION

Jacques Bourgeois (James Burger)

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

MichaelDavidCarr

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MichaelDavidCarr

ASKER

I've requested that this question be closed as follows:

Accepted answer: 0 points for MichaelDavidCarr's comment #a39574411

for the following reason:

After two days of investigating this issue, this problem turned out to be more complicated than I originally stated. It is not just a matter of casting or converting one type into another. It also requires that I do some more linq statements. Sorry about that and thank you all for your time. I will evenly distribute the points.

MichaelDavidCarr

ASKER

Hello Mr. Moderator,

Please see my above comment and evenly distribute the points among the experts. Thank you very much. By the way, I selected "Accept Multiple Solutions" and didn't see how to select multiple solutions. So now I need your help to distribute the points. Thank you again.

MichaelDavidCarr

ASKER

Thank you very much for helping me. The problem wasn't as simple as I originally thought.