Question

I have a VB.net application and I have a function with this signature:

Public Function DeSerializeAnObject(XmlOfAnObject As String, ObjectType As Type) As [Object]

but following call is giving error (at DebugPackage):

 Dim obj As ObjectSerializer = New ObjectSerializer
        obj.DeSerializeAnObject("", TypeOf(DebugPackage))

DebugPackage is a type and can not be used as exception.

Answer 1

You’re not using the right keyword, you should use GetType instead of TypeOf:

Dim obj As New ObjectSerializer
obj.DeSerializeAnObject("", GetType(DebugPackage))

Differences between GetType and TypeOf functions:

Dim obj As String = ""

' TypeOf operator checks if an Object belongs to a Type. 
' It cannot be used without the "Is SomeType" part
Dim isString As Boolean = TypeOf obj is String

' GetType operator returns Type information for a specified Type
Dim type As Type = GetType(String)

' Also, objects have a GetType method to retrieve it's Type
type = obj.GetType()