sholsinger.com

I'm starting to really enjoy working with C# and LINQ with ASP.NET. I particularly enjoy the IEnumerable extensions which are added by LINQ. I never gave LINQ much credit before. That is probably because I viewed it as a way to allow developers to get away with not knowing SQL. Now that I've had the chance to put it into action I realize that it makes .NET feel a lot like Ruby and Rails. And I like the feel of Ruby. So now I'm beginning to like the feel of C#.NET. I wish I had arrived at this point sooner. Code pr0n to follow below.

The code below is used to convert a business object into a Dictionary suitable for use in binding to a ListControl object. The first block is to make the ToString() method of our business object make a string that actually means something. The next block is what converts it to be used as a DataSource for our DataBoundControl. (ListControl) Note: I have "broken" bracket placement conventions and nixed some type defs for brevity's sake.

// BL/Address.cs (partial class)
public partial class Address() {
  public override string ToString() {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

    // code to build a 1-line address string

    return sb.ToString();
  }
}

// UI/Page.aspx.cs
protected void Page_Load(sender, e) {
  // ...
  // populate customer address drop-down
  if (customerLoaded) {
    // Holy LINQ extensions, Batman!
    IDictionary<string, string> addressDS = null;
    addressDS = cust.Addresses().ToDictionary<Address, string, string>(
      addr => addr.ID.ToString(),
      addr => addr.ToString()
    );
    CustomerAddressSelect.DataSource = addressDS;
    CustomerAddressSelect.DataTextField = "Value";
    CustomerAddressSelect.DataValueField = "Key";
    CustomerAddressSelect.DataBind();
  }
  else
  { // hide the dropdown when no address is available
    CustomerAddressSelect.Items.Clear();
    CustomerAddressSelect.SelectedValue = String.Empty;
  }
  // ...
}

Keep in mind that this is all quite quick and dirty and if I were truly trying to keep things DRY I'd make this whole thing a UserControl which I will do before the project I wrote it for is done.

Now all I need to do is start developing with ASP.NET MVC.