Nsryjdtyk

given following class:

public class Stock {

   public string Name;

   public double Price;

}

and I have following DataFactory:

public class DataFactory {

   public Stock Stock = new Stock();   



   public DataFactory Name(string name) {

     Stock.name = name;

     return this;

   }



   public DataFactory Price(double price) {

      Stock.Price = price;

      return this;

   }

}

can following code:

.....

   new DataFactory().Name("ATVI").Price(50)

....

be written as:

....

   new DataFactory().ATVI().Price(50)

....

without implementing ATVI() on the factory?
This will work if i create the method dynamically beforehand. But is this also possible without knowing what method will be called? So i am looking for some hook at lifetime that notifies me about unknown properties/methods.

And if this works, can Price() at compile time be called with intellisense?

No idea how this can be called so sorry if duplicate threads exist.

Best regards
Josef

Assuming you have a finite pre-defined set of text literals that does not change often, you could just generate an enumeration (or even a class of string constants) using T4 templates for example, and use it like:
DataFactory.Name(Tickers.ATVI).Price(50)

That would be an approach that best matches semantics of the problem and abilities of C# language and tooling.

By the way, that method chaining you're planning to use is a combination of builder pattern and fluent interface, see an example in c#

If you still want to have this concealed as a method call, you have a couple of options:

1. Pre - Generate list of methods using T4 templates in a partial class or as extension methods to your data factory. You could select a list of literals from you data store inside your T4 template. This is a fairly common approach. Since you will have the methods pre-generated, itellisence will work with this approach. read more about T4
   


2. Use DLR and dynamic. This will defer method lookup until runtime, and you can create a custom dynamic object that will accept any method call, and then take that method name and pass it as an argument to your Name method. Intellisence won't work with this approach since you don't have any metadata in the assembly regarding your methods. How to create a dynamic object
   


3. Use dynamic and additionally create an intellisence extension, see Custom Intellisense Extension for more details

You coud go even further, and write an Roslyn analyzer, and install it in your Visual Studio to have automatic code fixes from DataFactory().Name("ATVI") to DataFactory().ATVI(), that is - if you have the time/resource. Check out example of code analyzer

As always, the answer is "it depends", and context is everything, so it is hard to tell which solution will be best for you.
I would rather go for the simplest one 1), especially keeping in mind the complexity and maintenance cost of 2) and 3)

Please let me know if you need more details on any of the options
Hope it helps!

the following code

new DataFactory().Name("ATVI").Price(50)

cannot be written as

new DataFactory().ATVI().Price(50)

in fact, none of those codes works. because you can't get function "Price" from the function "Name" and "ATVI()" is not a valid function

I'm not sore what you're trying to accomplish, the given code will return a function.
but if I'm not mistaken you to want to set "Price" by "Name".
then what I think you need is the Class Dictionary

I tried to come up with a nice function or anything like that but I don't really know what you're are after...