Question

Have been hearing all around ArrayList getting obsolete these days. But I do have a genuine case to use an ArrayList, like this:

    ArrayList GetArrayInt()
    {
        ArrayList l = new ArrayList();
        l.Add(2);

        return l;
    }

    ArrayList GetArrayBool()
    {
        ArrayList l = new ArrayList();
        l.Add(true);

        return l;
    }

    void Process(ArrayList l)
    {
        foreach (var o in l)
        {
            if (o is int)
            {

            }
            else
            {

            }
        }
    }

Then I call Process like this:

    private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Process(GetArrayInt());
        //or
        Process(GetArrayBool());
    }

The bottom line is I dont need to write two Process methods separately for an ArrayList of ints and bools.

But I hear all negatives about ArrayLists. So I wanna implement it using List<T>. This is what I come up with:

    List<bool> GetListBool()
    {
        var l = new List<bool>();
        l.Add(true);

        return l;
    }

    List<int> GetListInt()
    {
        var l = new List<int>();
        l.Add(2);

        return l;
    }

    void Process(List<object> l)
    {
        foreach (var o in l)
        {
            if (o is int)
            {

            }
            else
            {

            }
        }
    }

Now how do I call it?

    private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Process(GetListInt()); //error
        Process(GetListBool()); //error
        Process((List<object>)GetListBool()); //error
    }

The only solution here I found is to write separate Process methods for List<bool> and List<int> which is then two methods (my actual code is a lot more complex, so going by this approach I will need to write twenty such Process methods all which do the same thing).

How can I go about writing just one Process method in List<T> approach? Can List<T> replace an ArrayList even here?

Update: all the three answers work, but I liked @Phil’s answer the best. Thanks all

Answer 1

As Mark Gravell says, what your doing is odd, but you could use type inference and use Process<T>(IEnumerable<T>) if you want to:

void Main()
{
    Process(GetInts());
    Process(GetBools());
}

IEnumerable<int> GetInts()
{
    return new List<int>{1,2,3};
}

IEnumerable<bool> GetBools()
{
    return new List<bool>{true, false, true};
}

void Process<T>(IEnumerable<T> items)
{
    foreach (var item in items)
    {
        if(item is int)
        {
           Debug.WriteLine("int: " + item.ToString());
        }
        if(item is bool)
        {
           Debug.WriteLine("bool: " + item.ToString());
        }
    }
}

The more sensible way that doesn’t require if(item is int) etc would be to have an overload of Process for each type

void Process(IEnumerable<int> items) { foreach(...) };
void Process(IEnumerable<bool> items) { foreach(...) };