ToPoco Method

Overview

The ToPoco method creates a new POCO object of type T and copies values from a data row into the POCO’s public writable properties. The created POCO object is a detached copy: it is not linked to the underlying row, and changes made to the POCO are not reflected in the row.

Property values are matched by name: a POCO property named Name reads from the row field "Name". If the field is missing or its value is null, that property is skipped.

Declaration

/// <summary>
/// Creates a new POCO instance from a data row by copying row values into writable properties.
/// Matching between property names and row keys is case-insensitive.
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">POCO type.</typeparam>
/// <param name="dataRow">Source data row.</param>
/// <returns>New POCO instance.</returns>
public static T ToPoco<T>(this IDataRow? dataRow) where T : new()

Namespace and Assembly

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

Behavior

• Creates a new instance of T and returns it even if dataRow is null.
• Enumerates all public instance properties of T and copies only writable properties.
• For each writable property, tries to find a row field with the same name using TryGetValue. If the field is missing or the value is null, the property is skipped.
• Special conversions:
  • Guid / Guid?: assigns a Guid directly or parses from a string value.
  • Enums: parses from string (case-insensitive) or converts from numeric values.
• For other types, attempts conversion using Convert.ChangeType with support for nullable types.
• Any conversion/assignment failure for a property is ignored and processing continues with the next property.

Usage Example

Let’s assume the following POCO type:

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

Copy data from a row into a POCO:

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

// 2. Create EmploymentType table and add a new row
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"] = "Full Time";

// 3. Convert row to POCO
EmploymentType employmentTypePoco = employmentTypeDataRow.ToPoco<EmploymentType>();

// 4. Change Code in POCO
employmentTypePoco.Code = "ET03";

// 5. Observe that changes are NOT propagated to data row (expected "ET01")
string? rowCode = employmentTypeDataRow["Code"] as string;

 

Table of Content POCO DataSet DataRow Members

 

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Business Process Programming in .Net
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