Finding a class type at runtime.

[Guest]

Hi all,

I have a class which holds a collection. The collection contains objects and at runtime all objects in the collection are of the same type. For example, the collection will hold cName classes, or cAddress classes.

What I can't figure out is how to create a new class of the same type as the first class in the collection.

For example, in the class holding the collection I have a method AddNew which needs to find out what type of classes the collection is holding (names, addresses, etc.), then create a new one and add it to the collection.

Any ideas are much appreciate, and thank you for your time reading this post.

Regards

Darren

 

[Mark Smithson]

Hi Darren,

If you get the first item from the collection you can get its type using

Type itemType = obj.GetType();

This type can then be used to create a new instance using
Activator.CreateInstance(itemType);

If your type takes constructor arguments you can pass these as an object
array in the second argument

Regards

Mark

Hi all,

I have a class which holds a collection. The collection contains objects

and at runtime all objects in the collection are of the same type. For
example, the collection will hold cName classes, or cAddress classes.

What I can't figure out is how to create a new class of the same type as

the first class in the collection.

For example, in the class holding the collection I have a method AddNew

which needs to find out what type of classes the collection is holding
(names, addresses, etc.), then create a new one and add it to the
collection.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Mark. Worked like a dream. The VB code is below in case anyone else needs it.

Dim itemtype As Type = colCollection.Item(1).GetType
Dim cLocal As Object = Activator.CreateInstance(itemtype)

Regards

Darren