Programmatic equivalent of default(Type)

Question

I'm using reflection to loop through a Type's properties and set certain types to their default. Now, I could do a switch on the type and set the default(Type) explicitly, but I'd rather do it in one line. Is there a programmatic equivalent of default?

Answer 1

• In case of a value type use Activator.CreateInstance and it should work fine.
• When using reference type just return null

public static object GetDefault(Type type) {    if(type.IsValueType)    {       return Activator.CreateInstance(type);    }    return null; } 

In the newer version of .net such as .net standard, type.IsValueType needs to be written as type.GetTypeInfo().IsValueType

Answer 2

Why not call the method that returns default(T) with reflection ? You can use GetDefault of any type with:

    public object GetDefault(Type t)     {         return this.GetType().GetMethod("GetDefaultGeneric").MakeGenericMethod(t).Invoke(this, null);     }      public T GetDefaultGeneric<T>()     {         return default(T);     }