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Get a property name from a lambda expression *without* an object instance

Asp.net MVC introduced the EditorFor method on the Html generic class. It allows you to write code that succinctly identifies a field of the view model. In this case the page this code is from must have a view model of some type that has a StudentId property or else this won't work.
#Html.EditorFor(m => m.StudentId)
The signature of the EditorFor property is something like this.
EditorFor<TModel,TValue>(HtmlHelper<TModel>, Expression<Func<TModel,TValue>>)
The method is defined on a generic type that knows the type of the TModel. So the lambda expression can be as simple as m => m.StudentId and we all know that the type of m is whatever TModel is. In this case it is the page's view model.
I would like to be able to write similar code, without knowing what type the property is defined on. I'd like to be able to write...
#Html.EditorFor(M.StudentId) // here M is a type not a lambda parameter
#Html.EditorFor(X.Y) // here X is a type not a lambda parameter
I'd like to be able to specify an arbitry type, and an arbitrary parameter, and have the method called with something that identifies both. For example if the method were called with a PropertyInfo then I could see both the property and the type it was defined on, both.
Said another way... In the same way that nameof(X.Y) gives a string "Y" for any arbitrary type X, I'd like an expression that gives something like a PropertyInfo too. Maybe property(X.Y) and you get back the PropertyInfo of the property Y from the type X.

You can use a property expression the same way as EditorFor. You can do this without an instance.
The one difference is you'll have to specify the type of the expression's parameter to tell the compiler what the object type is. So instead of
EditorFor( x => x.Name ); //Specifies a property but not a type
...your expression would look like this:
EditorFor( (MyType x) => x.Name ); //Specifies property and the type it belongs to
You can accomplish this with a short method like this one:
static PropertyInfo GetPropertyInfo<TIn, TOut>(Expression<Func<TIn, TOut>> expression)
{
var memberExp = expression.Body as MemberExpression;
return memberExp?.Member as PropertyInfo;
}
And then you can do this:
var p1 = GetPropertyInfo((string s) => s.Length);
Console.WriteLine("{0}.{1}", p1.DeclaringType.FullName, p1.Name);
var p2 = GetPropertyInfo((DateTime d) => d.Minute);
Console.WriteLine("{0}.{1}", p2.DeclaringType.FullName, p2.Name);
var p3 = GetPropertyInfo((Stream s) => s.CanSeek);
Console.WriteLine("{0}.{1}", p3.DeclaringType.FullName, p3.Name);
Output:
System.String.Length
System.DateTime.Minute
System.IO.Stream.CanSeek
Notice that we never needed any instances.

Expressions with dynamic return types (dynamic keyword)

My ultimate goal here is to make a generic version of IQueryable<T>.OrderBy() that takes a string parameter and an optional sort direction. Something like these:
return myList.OrderBy("Property1");
return myList.Orderby("Property1", SortOrder.Descending);
(The use case would be a website passing in a field the list would sort by.)
To that end, I've been trying to come up with a way of creating the following expression:
obj => obj.PropertyName
I've found a few places in StackOverflow that could help me, and they've gotten me quite close (this one in particular). Butt it doesn't quite get me all the way there. Specifically I keep getting the dreaded
Expression of type 'System.Int64' cannot be used for return type 'System.Object' for value types. I thought I could get away with return dynamic here, but that seems to have fallen over. I could do a Convert, but that seems like it should be unnecessary.
My code for generating the property selector is as follows:
public static Expression<Func<T, dynamic>> GeneratePropertySelector<T>(string propertyName)
{
var objectType = typeof(T);
var property = objectType.GetProperty(propertyName);
ParameterExpression arg = Expression.Parameter(objectType, "obj");
MemberExpression propertyExpression = Expression.Property(arg, propertyName);
// Here is the line that dies
var selectorExpression = Expression.Lambda<Func<T, dynamic>>(propertyExpression, new ParameterExpression[] { arg });
return selectorExpression;
}
And then usage inside the extension method implementation would be:
var ordered = myList.OrderBy(GeneratePropertySelector("Property1"));
For a string property, this works fine; for an int property, error.
Does anyone know how to get around this? I would have thought that dynamic would have helped here, but I'm at a loss. And given my use case, I'm trying to avoid something like this:
return myList.Orderby<int>("MyIntProperty");

How to convert PropertyInfo to property expression and use it to invoke generic method?

How to convert PropertyInfo to property expression which can be used to invoke StructuralTypeConfiguration<TStructuralType>.Ignore<TProperty>(Expression<Func<TStructuralType, TProperty>> propertyExpression) method?
I tried to use Expression.Property() to construct expression but I am getting following error when I use this expression as propertyExpression parameter:
The type arguments for method cannot be inferred from the usage. Try specifying the type arguments explicitly.
This error probably refers to TProperty type parameter which I don't know how to specify having only PropertyInfo.
I am doing this in relation to: Use Entity Framework's StructuralTypeConfiguration.Ignore() to Ignore all properties but specified set.
UPDATE
Code which is not working:
var propertyInfo = typeof(Foo).GetProperties()[0];
var expression = Expression.Default(typeof(Foo));
var expressionProperty = Expression.Property(expression, propertyInfo);
Ignore(expressionProperty);

var entityType = propertyInfo.DeclaringType;
var parameter = Expression.Parameter(entityType, "entity");
var property = Expression.Property(parameter, propertyInfo);
var funcType = typeof(Func<,>).MakeGenericType(entityType, propertyInfo.PropertyType);
var lambda = Expression.Lambda(funcType, property, parameter);
structureConfiguration.GetType()
.GetMethod("Ignore")
.MakeGenericMethod(propertyInfo.PropertyType)
.Invoke(structureConfiguration, new[]{lambda});

Property expressions require the property access to be on a specific object. There's a few options you can take here. First, if this is being done within one of your entity objects, you can simple use a ConstantExpression to build the property expression:
// Already have PropertyInfo in propInfo
Expression.Property(Expression.Constant(this, this.GetType()), propInfo)
However, since you need a Expression<Func<TStructuralType, TProperty>>, then it seems like you're going to have to build it using a ParameterExpression:
ParameterExpression pe = Parameter.Expression(typeof(MyEntity), "eParam");
Expression propExp = Expression.Property(pe, propInfo);
HOWEVER, here's the kicker... This is just a MemberExpression. To convert to the expression you need, you need to use Expression.Lambda to get a Func<> expression of the type you need. The problem? You don't know the type of the property to define the generic parameters of the lambda expression!
Expression<Func<MyEntity, ????>> eFunc = Expression.Lambda<Func<MyEntity, ????>>(propExp, pe);
This is the crux of the problem of doing it this way. That's not to say it can't be done... It's just that using this method IN THIS WAY isn't going to work. You'll have to use a bit runtime and static typing trickery (as well as judicious use of Actions instead of Funcs) to get this to work correctly.

TProperty exists only in the c# source code text. The compiler always resolves it to a concrete type. If you have a method
void Test<T>(T arg)
{
}
and call it like this
Test("hello");
Test(3);
The compiler generates code for two methods!
void Test(string arg)
{
}
void Test(int arg)
{
}
This means that you have to supply concrete types for your generic parameters if you want to have an invokable method.

This code will get you an Expression<Func<>> of the desired type. Note that there is an Expression.Lambda(...) override that doesn't need you to specify the type of the Func returned.
var t = typeof(Foo);
var pi = t.GetProperty(...);
var prm = Expression.Parameter(t, t.Name);
var prx = Expression.Property(prm, pi);
var lambda = Expression.Lambda(prx, prm);
Note that in many cases you don't have to bother with creating the Expression<Func<>> this way, assuming structureConfiguration below is a StructureConfiguration<Foo>, type inference will allow you to write something like this:
structureConfiguration.Ignore(f => f.Bar);

Conversion problem with Expression Trees

I have an expression tree function from a previous SO question. It basically allows the conversion of a data row into a specific class.
This code works fine, unless you're dealing with data types that can be bigger or smaller (eg. Int32/Int64).
The code throws an invalid cast exception when going from an Int64 to an Int32 when the value would fit in an Int32 (eg. numbers in the 3000).
Should I?
Attempt to fix this in the code? (If so, any pointers?)
Leave the code as it is.
private Func<SqlDataReader, T> getExpressionDelegate<T>()
{
// hang on to row[string] property
var indexerProperty = typeof(SqlDataReader).GetProperty("Item", new[] { typeof(string) });
// list of statements in our dynamic method
var statements = new List<Expression>();
// store instance for setting of properties
ParameterExpression instanceParameter = Expression.Variable(typeof(T));
ParameterExpression sqlDataReaderParameter = Expression.Parameter(typeof(SqlDataReader));
// create and assign new T to variable: var instance = new T();
BinaryExpression createInstance = Expression.Assign(instanceParameter, Expression.New(typeof(T)));
statements.Add(createInstance);
foreach (var property in typeof(T).GetProperties())
{
// instance.MyProperty
MemberExpression getProperty = Expression.Property(instanceParameter, property);
// row[property] -- NOTE: this assumes column names are the same as PropertyInfo names on T
IndexExpression readValue = Expression.MakeIndex(sqlDataReaderParameter, indexerProperty, new[] { Expression.Constant(property.Name) });
// instance.MyProperty = row[property]
BinaryExpression assignProperty = Expression.Assign(getProperty, Expression.Convert(readValue, property.PropertyType));
statements.Add(assignProperty);
}
var returnStatement = instanceParameter;
statements.Add(returnStatement);
var body = Expression.Block(instanceParameter.Type, new[] { instanceParameter }, statements.ToArray());
var lambda = Expression.Lambda<Func<SqlDataReader, T>>(body, sqlDataReaderParameter);
// cache me!
return lambda.Compile();
}
Update:
I have now given up and decided it is not worth it. From the comments below, I got as far as:
if (readValue.Type != property.PropertyType)
{
BinaryExpression assignProperty = Expression.Assign(getProperty, Expression.Convert(Expression.Call(property.PropertyType, "Parse", null, new Expression[] { Expression.ConvertChecked(readValue, typeof(string)) }), property.PropertyType));
statements.Add(assignProperty);
}
else
{
// instance.MyProperty = row[property]
BinaryExpression assignProperty = Expression.Assign(getProperty, Expression.Convert(readValue, property.PropertyType));
statements.Add(assignProperty);
}
I don't think I was too far off, feel free to finish it and post the answer if you figure it out :)

You could try to fix it by "convert checked" before assigning i.e. using Expression.ConvertChecked on the value instead of Expression.Convert .
Couldn't try it right now but this should take care of the case you describe...
EDIT - as per comment this could be a boxing issue:
In this case you could try using Expression.TypeAs or Expression.Unbox for the conversion or use Expression.Call for calling a method to do the conversion... an example for using Call can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb349020.aspx

What you're trying to build is actually much more complicated if you want to support 100% of the primitives in .NET and SQL.
If you don't care about some of the edge cases (nullable types, enums, byte arrays, etc), two tips to get you 90% there:
Don't use the indexer on IDataRecord, it returns an object and the boxing/unboxing will kill performance. Instead, notice that IDataRecord has Get[typeName] methods on it. These exist for all .NET primitive types (note: it's GetFloat, not GetSingle, huge annoyance).
You can use IDataRecord.GetFieldType to figure out which Get method you need to call for a given column. Once you have that, you can use Expression.Convert to coerce the DB column type to the target property's type (if they're different). This will fail for some of the edge cases I listed above, for those you need custom logic.

How do I get a value of a reference type in an Expression?

I have this method:
public void DoSomething<T>(Expression<Func<T, object>> method)
{
}
If this method is called like this:
DoSomething(c => c.SomeMethod(new TestObject()));
... how do I get the value of the parameter that was passed into SomeMethod()?
If the parameter is a value type, this works:
var methodCall = (MethodCallExpression)method.Body;
var parameterValue = ((ConstantExpression)methodCall.Arguments[0]).Value;
However, when I pass in a reference type, methodCall.Arguments[0] is a MemberExpression, and I can't seem to figure out how to write code to get the value out of it.

Here is the answer (inspired by Akash's answer):
LambdaExpression lambda = Expression.Lambda(methodCall.Arguments[0]);
var compiledExpression = lambda.Compile();
return compiledExpression.DynamicInvoke();

You will have to evaluate member expression manually, MemberExpression contains "Expression" which is the container object of Member specified, to do this you can crete Lamda of your arguement and compile and execute it.
LamdaExpression l = Expression.Lambda(methodCall.Arguments[0]);
var c = l.Compile();
var v = c.Invoke();
So whatever you pass, you will get it in "v" variable.

This isn't really a matter of value type or reference type - it's a matter of a constant expression or not-constant expression. I'm sure your existing code would fail if you called
DoSomething(c => c.SomeMethod(DateTime.Now));
as well.
Basically, the argument to the method is just an expression. It's not a value. You could potentially compile that expression and then execute it to get the value at that point in time, but it's important to understand that an expression isn't a value in itself. In the case of a constant expression it's easy, but taking the DateTime.Now example, by definition the evaluated value of the expression changes over time :)
What are you trying to do with the argument? What's the bigger picture here?

Firstly, what Jon said.
There are no values to get ahold of, it's all just expressions. What might be of interest is the NewExpression, which has a Constructor property; this property contains the reflected constructor that would be called if you compiled expression and ran the resulting delegate. You could manually invoke that constructor and get an instance of what the user was intending on instantiating.