Question

I am trying to convert a Python program into C#. I do not understand what is being done here.

def mincost(alg):
    parts = alg.split(' ')
    return sorted([cost(0, parts, 'G0 '),cost(1, parts, 'G1 ')], key=operator.itemgetter(1))[0]

def cost(grip, alg, p = '', c = 0.0, rh = True):
    if (len(alg) == 0):
        return (postProcess(p),c)

postprocess returns a string

cost returns multiple parameters used on the sorted() function? How are these multiple values being used by the sorted() function?

what does key=operator.itemgetter(1) do? Is this the basis for the sorting, so in this case the multiple value return of cost , it will use the value of c?

Is there a way to do this in C#?

Answer 1

The use of sorted there is a bit weird. You can easily replace that by a simple if-statement. Even weirder though is that cost returns just c as the second value of the return tuple. In mincost, cost is never called with a value of c that is not the default, so c is always 0.0 making the sorting quite redundant. But I guess there are some missing parts about the cost function.

Nevertheless, you could implement it function like this:

string MinCost (string alg) {
    List<string> parts = alg.split(" ");
    Tuple<string, double> cost1 = Cost(0, parts, "G0 ");
    Tuple<string, double> cost2 = Cost(1, parts, "G1 ");

    if (cost1[1] < cost2[1])
        return cost1[0];
    else
        return cost2[0];
}

Tuple<string, double> Cost (int grip, List<string> alg, string p="", double c=0.0, bool rh=True) {
    if (alg.Count == 0)
        return new Tuple<string, double>(PostProcess(p), c);

    // ... there should be more here
}

(untested)