Yes, I am talking about creating instances of classes at run time in C#.

In VB days, CreateObject function used to do this thing for us:
CreateObject (DllName.ClassName) as in e.g.

CreateObject ("MessagingFramework.TransportAdaptor")

But the most easiest way to do it in C# is to use the CreateInstance method of Activator class. This class is directly available in the System namespace only.

Activator class can be used to create types of objects locally or remotely, or obtain references to existing remote objects. This class cannot be inherited.

We are interested in its basic method accepting two arguements; assembly name and type name. Another overloaded method only accepting the complete type name if the class is within the same assembly.

Activator.CreateInstance(AssemblyName, CompleteTypeName) as in e.g.

Activator.CreateInstance("MessagingFramework", "MessagingFramework.Adaptors.TransportAdaptors");

The above will creates an instance of the type whose name is specified, using the named assembly and default constructor.

But that’s not it, you would have to unwrap the handle object returned by the CreateInstance method and type cast it into its Interface object to use.

ITransportAdaptor ta = Activator.CreateInstance("MessagingFramework", "MessagingFramework.Adaptors.TransportAdaptor").Unwrap() as ITransportAdaptor ;

Above method allows objects to be created remotely without having to load the type locally.

Hope it helps!

-NKJ

NitiN Kumar Jain

Nitin works in an IT MNC professionally but blogs and owns NKJ Live. He is also the co-owner of a professional start-up ARGHAM BYTES

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts