CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#winforms
Coltech
Coltech

Reputation: 1710

Winforms, create form instance by form name

I need a method that returns a new instance of a form by the name of the form. Here is what I have so far:

    public Form GetFormByName(string frmname)
    {
        return Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes().Where(a => a.BaseType == typeof(Form) && 
            a.Name == frmname).Cast<Form>().FirstOrDefault();
    }

However I get the following error when I attempt to execute this code:

Unable to cast object of type 'System.RuntimeType' to type 'System.Windows.Forms.Form'.

What does this error mean?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 6856

Answers (2)

Aghilas Yakoub
Aghilas Yakoub

Reputation: 28970

Assembly asm = typeof(EnterHereTypeInTheSameAssembly).Assembly;
Type type = asm.GetType(name);
Form form = (Form)Activator.CreateInstance(type);

Upvotes: 0

nemesv
nemesv

Reputation: 139758

You need the Activator.CreateInstance method which creates an instance of a type given a Type:

public Form TryGetFormByName(string frmname)
{
    var formType = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes()
        .Where(a => a.BaseType == typeof(Form) && a.Name == frmname)
        .FirstOrDefault();

    if (formType == null) // If there is no form with the given frmname
        return null;

    return (Form)Activator.CreateInstance(formType);
}

Upvotes: 11

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