Giving an object a collection as a property 1

[crazyboybert]

Hi all

What is the best way to give an object a publicly accesible collection of 0...* length regardless of the type of object stored in the collection. At the moment I commonly use ArrayLists for this by having a publicly accessible ArrayList and private member ArrayList pair into which I put the objects that make my collection. Is this the best way of doing this or is there a more correct method of giving an object a collection as a property?

Rob

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence - Erhmann 1927

 

[chiph]

You can do that, but then the caller can put anything in your collection, not just what you'd like them to put in there.

When Whidbey comes out, it will have generics, where you can control the datatype of what gets stored in your collections very easily. But for now, it takes a lot of code. Take a look at the FAQ for strongly-typed collections in this forum.

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[obislavu]

A Hashtable object allows to store heterogenous object types and the searching and retrieving are easier and faster than in most collections.
Example:
class A
{
public A(){};
public A(int a){//..};
}
class B {};
class C:B {};
class D{};

Hashtable = new Hashtable();
ht.Add("nameobj1",new A());
ht.Add("nameobj2",new A(19));
ht.Add("nameobj3",new B());
ht.Add("nameobj4",new C());
ht.Add("nameobj5",new D());

Now, retrive the object from the hashtable :
if (ht.ContainsKey("nameobj2"))
{
object o = ht["nameobj2"];
System.Type tp = o.GetType(); // retrive the type of object
}
Or search by a given object using the ContainsValue() method.
-obislavu-

 

[crazyboybert]

Thanks ChipH thats exactly what I am looking for .

Thanks also to obislavu for your response. I can see the benefit of HashTables and how they can be used within Chip's strongly typed collections.

Rob

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence - Erhmann 1927