Question

I am a Java programmer, I have used a Java ArrayList before and now I want to have something like that in C#. Some of options I need are in this Java code:

String[] strs = new String[]{"str1" , "str2" , "str3" , "str4"};
ArrayList arrayList = new ArrayList(35);
arrayList.add(strs[0]);
arrayList.add(strs[1]);
arrayList.remove(0);
arrayList.set(0, strs[2]);
String s = (String) arrayList.get(1);

I used C# ArrayList and LinkedList, but they don’t have these simple options that I need. Is there another option in C# supporting accessing objects with indexes, inserting and removing from certain index?

Answer 1

use List <T>

 String[] strs = new String[]{"str1" , "str2" , "str3" , "str4"};
 List<string> stringList = new List<string>();
 stringList.add(strs[0]);
 stringList.add(strs[1]);
 stringList.RemoveAt(indexYouWantToDelete)     
 String s = stringList[0];

ArrayLists in c# come from the pre-generic era tho. Since C# 2.0 we have generic collections, List <T> being one example of that. As the comment on this answer says, if you use an ArrayList, the elements that you put into the arraylist will have to be boxed (to Object, because thats the only thing an ArrayList takes as input). If you want to access them after that, they will have to be explicitly unboxed, like what you did in your question. ( –> String s = (String) arrayList.get(1); )

using generic collections (like List <T>), there is no boxing anymore, as the compiler knows what datatype the list will consist of. In this case, Strings.
You could also have a List<int>, List<char>, or List<whatever>, and you can use the same indexing functionality on them.