What does T represent in this class signature and how can i Instantiate this class?

Question

I am looking at some of my professor's code for him while he is on Holiday and i came across this unreferenced class. Can someone please explain what T represents and possibly how to instantiate a class such as this?

public class RowToObject<T> where T : new()

Answer 1

T is anything with a public parameterless constructor as constrained by:

where T : new()

To instantiate it, provide a type for T that has a public parameterless constructor:

var myRowToObject = new RowToObject<AnotherClass>();

As for how it's intended to be used in your code-base, no idea! :-)

Answer 2

RowToObject is a generic class, it takes a type in parameter. This type is identified by T and the constraint (T : new()) enforces that this type must have a default constructor.

More on constraints.