Determine if a type is static

c# .net reflection types instantiation
Beaker picture Beaker · Jul 24, 2009 · Viewed 11k times · Source

Let's say I have a Type called type.

I want to determine if I can do this with my type (without actually doing this to each type):

If type is System.Windows.Point then I could do this:

Point point1 = new Point();

However if type is System.Environment then this will not fly:

Environment environment1 = new Environment(); //wrong

So if I am iterating through every visible type in an assembly how do I skip all the types that will fail to create an instance like the second one? I'm kind of new to reflection so I'm not that great with the terminology yet. Hopefully what I'm trying to do here is pretty clear.

Answer

mmx picture mmx · Jul 24, 2009

static classes are declared abstract and sealed at the IL level. So, you can check IsAbstract property to handle both abstract classes and static classes in one go (for your use case).

However, abstract classes are not the only types you can't instantiate directly. You should check for things like interfaces (without the CoClass attribute) and types that don't have a constructor accessible by the calling code.

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