Creating instance of a template type with class inheritance

Question

I have an issue which I can't seem to solve.

Suppose I have classes set up like this:

public abstract class GenericCustomerInformation
{
    //abstract methods declared here
}

public class Emails : GenericCustomerInformation
{
    //some new stuff, and also overriding methods from GenericCustomerInformation
}

public class PhoneNumber : GenericCustomerInformation
{
    //some new stuff, and also overriding methods from GenericCustomerInformation
}

Now suppose I have a function setup like this:

private void CallCustomerSubInformationDialog<T>(int iMode, T iCustomerInformationObject)
{
    //where T is either Emails or PhoneNumber

    GenericCustomerInformation genericInfoItem;

    //This is what I want to do:
    genericInfoItem = new Type(T);

    //Or, another way to look at it:
    genericInfoItem = Activator.CreateInstance<T>(); //Again, does not compile
}

In the CallCustomerSubInformationDialog<T> function, I have a variable of the base type GenericCustomerInformation, which I want to instantiate with whatever is coming in T ( one of the derived types: either Emails or PhoneNumber)

An easy thing would be to use a bunch of if conditions, but I don't want to do anything conditional, as that will make my code much bigger than it needs to be ..

Answer 1

something like this maybe? (or have I misunderstood?)

private void CallCustomerSubInformationDialog<T>(int iMode, T iCustomerInformationObject) where T: GenericCustomerInformation, new()
{
    //where T is either Emails or PhoneNumber
    GenericCustomerInformation genericInfoItem;
    //This is what you could try to do:
    genericInfoItem = new T();

}

NB: Note the constraints on T...