Activators Dotnet 4.6.1 Review

Here is the story of the Activator in the world of .NET 4.6.1.

Performance Characteristics

• Slower than direct new – typically 10–50x slower due to reflection.
• Caching constructor info mitigates repeated costs (but Activator itself does not cache).
• For high-performance scenarios, use compiled expressions or FormatterServices.GetUninitializedObject (bypasses constructor).

7. Troubleshooting activation failures

9. Alternative: Use Activator.CreateInstanceFrom

If your assembly is not loaded yet:

ObjectHandle handle = Activator.CreateInstanceFrom("MyLibrary.dll", "MyNamespace.MyClass");
object instance = handle.Unwrap();

5. Common Use Cases in .NET 4.6.1