Can I load a .NET assembly at runtime and instantiate a type knowing only the name?

Question

Is it possible to instantiate an object at runtime if I only have the DLL name and the class name, without adding a reference to the assembly in the project? The class imple

Answer 1

Starting from Framework v4.5 you can use Activator.CreateInstanceFrom() to easily instantiate classes within assemblies. The following example shows how to use it and how to call a method passing parameters and getting return value.

    // Assuming moduleFileName contains full or valid relative path to assembly    
    var moduleInstance = Activator.CreateInstanceFrom(moduleFileName, "MyNamespace.MyClass");
    MethodInfo mi = moduleInstance.Unwrap().GetType().GetMethod("MyMethod");
    // Assuming the method returns a boolean and accepts a single string parameter
    bool rc = Convert.ToBoolean(mi.Invoke(moduleInstance.Unwrap(), new object[] { "MyParamValue" } ));