C# version of Avro and reflection

[Peter Cameron <pe...@2icworld.com>]

In my Java work I successfully use Avro to serialise and deserialise 
objects for which I only have the schema. There are no Avro objects 
generated from these schemas because we only have the schemas at 
runtime, and no code generation was done. So for example, the following 
Java satisifies our functionality (the value is always a ByteBuffer of 
bytes by the way):

     private Object deserialiseComplex(final Object value, final Schema 
schema) throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException {
         final byte [] bytes = ((ByteBuffer) value).array();
         final ByteArrayInputStream in = new ByteArrayInputStream(bytes);
         final BinaryDecoder decoder = 
DecoderFactory.get().binaryDecoder(in, null);
         final ReflectDatumReader<Object> reader = new 
ReflectDatumReader<>(schema);
         final Object deserialised = reader.read(null, decoder);

         return deserialised;
     }

However, some colleagues are developing a C# version of my application 
and have found that C# Avro provides no reflective capabilities like 
ReflectDatumReader and ReflectDatumWriter.

Is the only way to have the same functionality on the C# side to 
generate Avro objects from the schemas and hence use the Specific 
readers and writers?

Peter