Class name as string in defining a collection in c#

Question

I have class name as string that I got using TYPE

Type type = myvar.GetType();  
string _className = type.ToString(); // getting the class name

My question is how to use this string _className here in the code below?

var data = this.ItemsSource as ObservableCollection<**_className**>()[2];

Here ItemsSource is generic.

Thanks in advance.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9842222/dynamic-cast-to-generic-type — Mitch Wheat, Jun 02 '14 at 10:52
Instead of using the `string`, you can use the value of `type` along with some reflection to create an instance of a generic type. You can't use either of those directly in code though (that is, you can't write code of the form `ObservableCollection` where the `xxx` is a variable). — Dan Puzey, Jun 02 '14 at 10:54
Could try with `Type.GetType(_className)` to fetch the type. — Jite, Jun 02 '14 at 10:55
Try `var data = (this.ItemsSource as IList)[2]`. Then you don't need to know the type — amnezjak, Jun 02 '14 at 10:59
I didn't try creating an instance of a generic type, I will do and let me check — Hafiz H, Jun 02 '14 at 11:03

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 02 '14 at 13:24

You can do that using reflection and the Activator.CreateInstance method:

Type type = myvar.GetType();  
string className = type.ToString(); 
Type genericType = Type.GetType(className);
Type observableCollectionType = typeof(ObservableCollection<>);
Type constructedType = observableCollectionType.MakeGenericType(genericType);
var constructedInstance = Activator.CreateInstance(constructedType);

Class name as string in defining a collection in c#

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