RuntimeDefaults Class

Overview

The RuntimeDefaults class is a small helper in the PocoDataSet.Data assembly that provides a runtime equivalent of default(T) when you only have a System.Type instance.

It returns null for reference types and creates a default instance for value types (for example, 0 for int, false for bool, DateTime.MinValue for DateTime).

Namespace and Assembly

Namespace: PocoDataSet.Data
Assembly: PocoDataSet.Data.dll

Declaration

public static class RuntimeDefaults
{
    public static object? GetDefault(Type t);
    public static object? ForType(Type t);
}

Methods

GetDefault(Type t)

Returns the runtime default value for the provided Type. This method is a small wrapper around ForType(Type).

• If t is null, throws ArgumentNullException.
• If t is a value type, attempts to create the default value using Activator.CreateInstance.
• If t is a reference type, returns null.

ForType(Type t)

Same behavior as GetDefault(Type). It is kept for callers that already use the ForType naming.

• If t is null, throws ArgumentNullException.
• If t is a value type, it tries to create a default instance using Activator.CreateInstance(t). If instance creation fails for any reason, it returns null.
• If t is a reference type, returns null.

Usage Example

// Example: obtain default values when only a System.Type is known at runtime
object? defaultInt = RuntimeDefaults.GetDefault(typeof(int));
object? defaultBool = RuntimeDefaults.GetDefault(typeof(bool));
object? defaultString = RuntimeDefaults.GetDefault(typeof(string));

// defaultInt is 0 (boxed)
// defaultBool is false (boxed)
// defaultString is null

Design Notes

• The use of Activator.CreateInstance makes this helper work for any value type (including structs) without hard-coding type checks.
• For value types, instance creation is wrapped in a try/catch and returns null if instantiation fails. This keeps callers simple in scenarios where the type is unexpected or cannot be constructed.
• If you need defaults based on logical column data types (for example, DataTypeNames), use MetadataDefaults / MetadataDefaultsProvider. RuntimeDefaults is strictly about System.Type.

 

Table of Content POCO DataSet PocoDataSet.Data

 

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