Question

I have an array of Type objects corresponding to int, bool, string, float, int? …

How do I write a function that takes in the above array and returns strongly typed default values for each type in the array?

Answer 1

To get a default value from a Type, simply invoke Activator.CreateInstance

object obj = Activator.CreateInstance(theType);

As for the bit about getting a strong type, the problem is that when you use reflection in this manner, it deals in objects. To get a strong type, you would need to know it at compile time, which kind of defeats your purpose. When you’re doing these things at runtime, you’re left with object or dynamic (which is just object behind the scenes).

Beyond that, if you’re talking about running the array through a method and returning default values for each type, you’re going to be talking about returning an IEnumerable<object> or object[] array, as the type of each item would obviously differ.