Question

I got a function which wants to send 2 INT parameters back to where it has been called, but not sure what would be the best option, a Dictionary ? or a List or an Array

EDITED

I am using .Net framework 2

Answer 1

I assume you mean return 2 values to the caller. If so:

• return a Tuple<T1, T2>
• return your own custom type which stores the desired values, like MyOperationResult
• use out parameters: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t3c3bfhx(v=vs.80).aspx
• return a collection

It depends on what is easiest for the caller to understand, i.e. what best demonstrates your intention?

Returning a variable-size collection may not be intuitive if the result will always have two values. My preference is either a Tuple or a custom type. A Tuple has the advantage of being an existing type, but the disadvantage that it’s not clear what its members mean; they are just called “Item1”, “Item2”, and so on.

The out keyword is nice for operations which may not succeed and always return a bool, like public bool int.TryParse( string value, out int parsedValue ). Here the intent is clear.