Question

I am trying to create a generic list of objects using reflection. The below code throws an error Cannot create an instance of an interface. . I could change the IList to List and it works fine, but I was wondering if there is way to get this working with an IList.

    var name = typeof (IList<T>).AssemblyQualifiedName;

    Type type = Type.GetType(name);

    var list = Activator.CreateInstance(type);

Answer 1

you’ll have to instatiate a concrete class so if you do

var type = Type.GetType(typeof (List<T>).AssemblyQualifiedName);
var list = (Ilist<T>)Activator.CreateInstance(type);

you will be succesfull (as long as you supply a valid value for T of course).