How could I pass the type using Variables to the generic method???

Question

Hi All,

I have a generic method in c#:

public IList<T> getList<T>();

When I call it as the way below?

...
Type T1=metadata.ModelType;
getList<T1>();

...

I got error in compiling.

How could I do for it? I really need to pass the type as Variables to the generic method!

Answer 1

The generic parameter is a type parameter:

getList<string>(); // Return a list of strings
getList<int>(); // Return a list of integers
getList<MyClass>(); // Return a list of MyClass

You are not calling it with a type but with an object.

Answer 2

As Oded pointed out, you cannot do this the way you tried, since <T> does not accept types. You can, however, achieve what you want using reflection:

Type T1=metadata.ModelType;

MethodInfo method = GetType().GetMethod("getList");
MethodInfo genericMethod = method.MakeGenericMethod(new Type[] { T1 });

genericMethod.Invoke(this, null);

If getList is a static method, or in another class, you need to replace GetType() by typeof(...) with ... being the name of the class.

Answer 3

You can't : in your sample, T1 is an instance of the System.Type class and not an actual type like IList for example