Can I provide a meaningful name for an anonymous class in C #?

Question

We all know that when we create an anonymous class as follows:

var Employee = new { ID = 5, Name= "Prashant" }; 

... at runtime it will be of type:

 <>f__AnonymousType0<int,string> 

Is there a way to specify a meaningful name for such classes?

Answer 1

 public class Employee {} 

Answer 2

This is an anonymous type that defeats the target. These objects are intended for temporary use. Hell, properties are even read-only.

Sorry, I'm a smart ass. The answer is no, there is no way to tell the compiler which name to use for the anonymous type.

In fact, the type names generated by the compiler use illegal characters in their name so that you can not run into names in your application.

Answer 3

 public class Employee { public int ID { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } } 

Then use the following syntax

 var employee = new Employee { ID = 5, Name = "Prashant" }; 

Answer 4

Make this a regular class with a name?

 public class Employee { public int ID; public string Name; } var Employee = new Employee { ID = 5, Name= "Prashant" }; 

Answer 5

In fact, if you are not afraid to get extremely harsh, you can use TypeBuilder to create your own runtime type based on your anonymous type, which allows you to specify a name for this type. Of course, it is much easier to just declare a class, like almost everyone else in this topic, but the TypeBuilder method is much more interesting.;)

Typebuilder

Answer 6

The answer in Java World will be a local class (defined in the method) that are missing in C #.

Answer 7

Yes, you create an Anonymous class if you want your class to have a name, i.e. Not anonymously , then declare a regular class or structure.

Answer 8

Since this is anonymous, you cannot name it. If you need to know the type name, you must really create a class.

Answer 9

No, there is no way to give a meaningful type name to these classes as you declared them. Anonymous types are just anonymous. It is not possible to explicitly “name” a code type without resorting to very ugly hacks.

If you really need to specify a name type, you need to explicitly declare and use the new type with the properties you need.

Answer 10

I think that, by definition, anonymous types cannot have a name, just what its compiler gives. If you are looking for more meaningful development time information for anonymous types, you expect too much from the compiler.