CopyToPoco Method

Overview

The CopyToPoco method copies values from an IDataRow into an existing Plain Old CLR Object (POCO) instance. Property matching between the data row and the POCO is performed in a case-insensitive manner.

This method is typically used when applying a POCO DataSet changeset back to domain or persistence entities, such as Entity Framework Core tracked entities. Only values present in the data row are applied; missing fields are ignored.

Declaration

/// <summary>
/// Copies values from a data row into an existing POCO instance.
/// Matching between property names and row keys is case-insensitive.
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">POCO type.</typeparam>
/// <param name="dataRow">Source data row.</param>
/// <param name="pocoInstance">Target POCO instance.</param>
public static void CopyToPoco<T>(this IDataRow? dataRow, T? pocoInstance)

Namespace and Assembly

Namespace: PocoDataSet.Extensions
Assembly: PocoDataSet.Extensions.dll

Behavior

• Property matching is case-insensitive.
• Only writable public properties are considered.
• If a value is missing in the data row, the property is skipped.
• If a value is explicitly null, the property is set to null when possible.
• Type conversion is performed where possible.
• Conversion failures are swallowed to preserve forward compatibility.

Supported Type Conversions

• Primitive types via Convert.ChangeType
• Nullable<T>
• Enums and Nullable<Enum>
• Guid and Nullable<Guid>
• DateTime and Nullable<DateTime> (round-trip invariant parsing)

Usage Example

Assume that there are IEmploymentType interface and EmploymentType class which implements it:

public interface IEmploymentType
{
  int Id { get; set; }
  string? Code { get; set; }
  string? Description { get; set; }
}

public class EmploymentType : IEmploymentType
{
  public int Id { get; set; }
  public string? Code { get; set; }
  public string? Description { get; set; }
}

All properties assignment:

// 1. Create data set
IDataSet dataSet = DataSetFactory.CreateDataSet();

// 2. Create EmploymentType data table with one data row and data in it
IDataTable employmentTypeDataTable = dataSet.AddNewTable("EmploymentType");
employmentTypeDataTable.AddColumn("Id", DataTypeNames.INT32);
employmentTypeDataTable.AddColumn("Code", DataTypeNames.STRING);
employmentTypeDataTable.AddColumn("Description", DataTypeNames.STRING);

IDataRow employmentTypeDataRow = employmentTypeDataTable.AddNewRow();
employmentTypeDataRow["Id"] = 1;
employmentTypeDataRow["Code"] = "ET01";
employmentTypeDataRow["Description"] = "Part Time";

// 3. Create EmploymentType POCO
IEmploymentType employmentType = new EmploymentType();

// 4. Call CopyToPoco method and observe that all properties of employmentType instance are assigned
employmentTypeDataRow.CopyToPoco(employmentType);

Partial properties assignment:

// 1. Create data set
IDataSet dataSet = DataSetFactory.CreateDataSet();

// 2. Create EmploymentType data table with one data row and data in it
IDataTable employmentTypeDataTable = dataSet.AddNewTable("EmploymentType");
employmentTypeDataTable.AddColumn("Id", DataTypeNames.INT32);
employmentTypeDataTable.AddColumn("Code", DataTypeNames.STRING);

IDataRow employmentTypeDataRow = employmentTypeDataTable.AddNewRow();
employmentTypeDataRow["Id"] = 1;
employmentTypeDataRow["Code"] = "ET01";

// 3. Create EmploymentType POCO
IEmploymentType employmentType = new EmploymentType();

// 4. Call CopyToPoco method and observe that all properties of employmentType instance are assigned except Description
employmentTypeDataRow.CopyToPoco(employmentType);

Typical Use Cases

• Applying delta changesets to Entity Framework Core tracked entities.
• Populating domain objects from dynamic datasets.
• Synchronizing POCO instances after UI editing.
• Patch-style updates where only provided fields should be applied.

Design Notes

• This method is intentionally tolerant of type mismatches.
• Exceptions during property assignment are swallowed by design.
• Missing fields are treated as "not provided" rather than "null".
• This behavior aligns with PATCH semantics and floating changesets.

 

Table of Content POCO DataSet DataRow Members

 

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Business Process Programming in .Net
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