Turn a dynamic DataTable into a List<Dictionary<string,string>>

Question

I want an elegant way to take a DataTable like this one :

And turn it into a :

List<Dictionary<string,string>> values = dataTable.ToDictionary();

Each dictionary in the list corresponds to a row. A dictionary contains the values of a row where the key is the column name and the value is the column value.

The method should support dynamic number of columns and names.

Answer 1

You need to turn each row into a dictionary:

// Iterate through the rows...
table.AsEnumerable().Select(
    // ...then iterate through the columns...
    row => table.Columns.Cast<DataColumn>().ToDictionary(
        // ...and find the key value pairs for the dictionary
        column => column.ColumnName,    // Key
        column => row[column] as string // Value
    )
)