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 defau

Answer 1

The Expressions can help here:

    private static Dictionary lambdasMap = new Dictionary();

    private object GetTypedNull(Type type)
    {
        Delegate func;
        if (!lambdasMap.TryGetValue(type, out func))
        {
            var body = Expression.Default(type);
            var lambda = Expression.Lambda(body);
            func = lambda.Compile();
            lambdasMap[type] = func;
        }
        return func.DynamicInvoke();
    }

I did not test this snippet, but i think it should produce "typed" nulls for reference types..