Hi Bernard,

I'm not totally sure what you are trying to do but, I have written a little code below that you can paste straight into a C# Console application. What it does is as follows:-

1) Creates an instance of a PropertyWrapper class.
2) Allows you to call the AddProperty() method to add, well, properties :)
3) Shows you how to extract indvidual property values and how to test for properties that may not exist.
4) Allows you to get the property collection (in the form of a generic dictionary) out of the PropertyWrapper class.
5) Shows you how to iterate through the dictionary extracting the property name and its value

Finally, the Dictionary class is serializable so, you should have no problem returning the collection from a web service.

HTH

Best,

-=Gary

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    public class Bernard
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            // Create an instance of our custom Property Wrapper class.
            PropertyWrapper wrapper = new PropertyWrapper();

            // Add a few properties to it.
            wrapper.AddProperty("Name", "Bernard Bout");
            wrapper.AddProperty("DOB", Convert.ToDateTime("01/01/1970"));
            wrapper.AddProperty("Phone", "+44 161 777 5555");
            wrapper.AddProperty("Email", "bernard@someplace.com");

            // Get some values we know exist.
            string nameValue = wrapper.GetValue("Name").ToString();
            DateTime dobValue = Convert.ToDateTime(wrapper.GetValue("DOB"));

            // Output these values to the console.
            Console.WriteLine("\"Name\" == " + nameValue);
            Console.WriteLine("\"DOB\" == " + dobValue.ToString());

            // Try for one that doesn't.
            object badValue = wrapper.GetValue("BadValue");
            if (badValue == null)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("*** \"BadValue\" doesn't exist ***");
            }

            Console.WriteLine();
            Console.WriteLine();

            // Get hold of the generic dictionary.
            Dictionary<string, object> properties = wrapper.GetProperties();

            // Iterate around the dictionary and ouput the key/value pairs to the console window.
            foreach (KeyValuePair<string, object> pair in properties)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(string.Format("The property name is \"{0}\" and it's value is: {1}", pair.Key, pair.Value));
            }

            Console.Read();
        }
    }

    public class PropertyWrapper
    {
        #region " Private Member Fields "

        // Create a private member field called _runtTimeProperties that is of type
        // generic dictionary where the "key" is based on a string type and the 
        // value is based on an object type. This means that you can add any
        // value to the dictionary because everything is derived from object.
        private Dictionary<string, object> _runtTimeProperties = new Dictionary<string, object>();

        #endregion

        #region " AddProperty(string vfpStylePropertyName, object vfpStylePropertValue) "
        /// <summary>
        /// This method is a simple wrapper that allows you to add a property/value
        /// to the internal dictionary as a key/value pair.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="vfpStylePropertyName"></param>
        /// <param name="vfpStylePropertValue"></param>
        public void AddProperty(string vfpStylePropertyName, object vfpStylePropertValue)
        {
            try
            {
                _runtTimeProperties.Add(vfpStylePropertyName, vfpStylePropertValue);
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                // Handle duplicate key added to Dictionary.
                throw new Exception("Error occured adding property", e);            
            }
        }
        #endregion

        #region " GetProperties() "
        /// <summary>
        /// Return the dictionary.
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public Dictionary<string, object> GetProperties()
        {
            return _runtTimeProperties;
        }
        #endregion

        #region " GetValue(string propertyName) "
        /// <summary>
        /// Get an individual property value.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="propertyName"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public object GetValue(string propertyName)
        {
            object outValue = null;

            // If the propertyName cannot be found in _runtTimeProperties, TryGetValue()
            // returns false which on this occasion can be discarded. If the value isn't
            // found, outValue stays null
            _runtTimeProperties.TryGetValue(propertyName, out outValue);
            return outValue;
        }
        #endregion
    }
}