Dynamically creating an object (Reflection?)

[MarkusJNZ]

Hi, given a name of an class e.g. "MyClass" which is stored as a string
is it possible to create a new instance of this type dynamically and
then reference the attributes by name in code??

e.g.

If my class is called Person and it has attributes FirstName and
LastName is it possible to do something like this;

public void GeneratePerson( )
{

string className = "Person";
(CreateInstance OfPerson) _person = new (CreateInstance OfPerson);
_person.FirstNa me = "fred";
_person.LastNam e = "smith";
_person.AddName ();

}

I did look at using reflection but can't seem to create an instance of
an object just given a string and then populate the object with
attrbutes.

Any help appreciated
Thanks
Markus
=============== ========
googlenews2006m arkusj

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

<Ma*******@gmai l.comwrote:

Hi, given a name of an class e.g. "MyClass" which is stored as a string
is it possible to create a new instance of this type dynamically and
then reference the attributes by name in code??

e.g.

If my class is called Person and it has attributes FirstName and
LastName is it possible to do something like this;

public void GeneratePerson( )
{

string className = "Person";
(CreateInstance OfPerson) _person = new (CreateInstance OfPerson);
_person.FirstNa me = "fred";
_person.LastNam e = "smith";
_person.AddName ();

}

I did look at using reflection but can't seem to create an instance of
an object just given a string and then populate the object with
attrbutes.

You want Activator.Creat eInstance to create the instance - or use
Type.GetType to get the type, and then fetch and invoke a constructor.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.co m>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon.skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

[MarkusJNZ]

Thanks Jon
Regards
Markus
Jon wrote:

<Ma*******@gmai l.comwrote:

Hi, given a name of an class e.g. "MyClass" which is stored as a string
is it possible to create a new instance of this type dynamically and
then reference the attributes by name in code??

e.g.

If my class is called Person and it has attributes FirstName and
LastName is it possible to do something like this;

public void GeneratePerson( )
{

string className = "Person";
(CreateInstance OfPerson) _person = new (CreateInstance OfPerson);
_person.FirstNa me = "fred";
_person.LastNam e = "smith";
_person.AddName ();

}

I did look at using reflection but can't seem to create an instance of
an object just given a string and then populate the object with
attrbutes.

You want Activator.Creat eInstance to create the instance - or use
Type.GetType to get the type, and then fetch and invoke a constructor.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.co m>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon.skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

[Steven Nagy]

You also won't be able to get this kind of strong typing in your code:

_person.FirstNa me = "fred";

Objects created using reflection can have their properties and methods
referenced through a collection however. You can once again use the
string name of the field in order to find it. This code should be
pretty well documented in MSDN.

However, if at design time you know for sure the names of the
properties and methods (but not the class name), you might be able to
extract your common class aspects into an interface, then cast the
dynamically created object as an interface instance, and then use the
strongly typed names.

Hope this makes sense.

Steven