Can you assign a TypeConverter without a TypeConverterAttribute?

Question

Dependency requirements are forcing me to have a class and its TypeConverter in different assemblies.

Is there a way to assign a TypeConverter to a class without using a TypeConverterAttribute, and thus causing circular assembly references.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Hmm, not sure I've seen this before, but you could add the TypeConverterAttribute at runtime using a TypeDescriptor, so given my sample classes:

public class MyType
{
    public string Name;
}

public class MyTypeConverter : TypeConverter
{
    public override bool CanConvertFrom(ITypeDescriptorContext context, Type sourceType)
    {
        if (sourceType == typeof(string))
            return true;

        return base.CanConvertFrom(context, sourceType);
    }

    public override object ConvertFrom(ITypeDescriptorContext context, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture, object value)
    {
        if (value.GetType() == typeof(string))
            return new MyType() { Name = (string) value };

        return base.ConvertFrom(context, culture, value);
    }
}

I could then have a method:

public void AssignTypeConverter<IType, IConverterType>()
{
  TypeDescriptor.AddAttributes(typeof(IType), new TypeConverterAttribute(typeof(IConverterType)));
}

AssignTypeConverter<MyType, MyTypeConverter>();

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

You can still use TypeConverterAttribute and use its constructor which accepts a fully qualified name. See MSDN.