Question

I can only write this in pseudo-code since I don’t know the correct syntax.. If there is one.

I have a method I want to call:

JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Type>(string value);

Which would return the given type.

The problem is that I don’t know how to pass the type to that method since I won’t know the type at build time. The method from my MVC Controller would be:

public JsonResult Save(string typeName, string model)
{
    // Insert your genius answer here.
}

I need to have my type later on so I can use a DataContractSerializer to store it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

You can use the Type.GetType() method. It has an overload that accepts a string of the assembly-qualified name of the type, and returns the corresponding Type.

Your code would look something like this:

public JsonResult Save(string typeName, string model)
{
    // My genius answer here
    Type theType = Type.GetType(typeName);
    if (theType != null)
    {
        MethodInfo mi = typeof(JsonConvert).GetMethod("DeserializeObject");
        MethodInfo invocableMethod = mi.MakeGenericMethod(theType);
        var deserializedObject = invocableMethod.Invoke(null, new object[] { model });
    }
}