Initialize Type by name string in .net

Question

I have an application that reads its setting at startup from App.config. The application may use different presistent storage providers. Currently I have two implemented: Oracle and Dummy (for test purposes).

Now in my Program.cs I read the name of the type of storage to use. It may be either OracleStorage or DemoStorage. These are type names, the implementations of which reside in a separate dll project.

Now, how do I instantiate an object given that I have a type name?

So I could write:

IStorageProvider storage = new typof(myStorageClassNameReadFromAppConfig);

Answer 1

You can use Activator.CreateInstance combined with Type.GetType:

IStorageProvider storage = 
        (IStorageProvider) Activator.CreateInstance(
                             Type.GetType(myStorageClassNameReadFromAppConfig)
                           );