Why does this generic method require T to have a public, parameterless constructor?

Question

public void Getrecords(ref IList iList,T dataItem) 
{ 
  iList = Populate.GetList() // GetListis defined as GetList
}

data

Answer 1

Your revised question passes in dataItem as an object of type T and then tries to use it as a type argument to GetList(). Perhaps you pass dataItem in only as a way to specify T?

If so, the you may want something like so:

public IList GetRecords() {
  return Populate.GetList();
}

Then you call that like so:

IList result = GetRecords();