Question

I have a WCF service that i cannot touch which returns List<FilesWithSettings>.
I need to enter few PC which are grouped together and retrieve List<FilesWithSettings> for each one along with PCIdentifier which brings me to Dictionary<PCIdentifier,List<FilesWithSettings>> or List<PCIdentifier> and List<List<FilesWithSettings>> which isn’t elegant and unreadable.

Can you give me more elegant solution ?

Answer 1

I guess you’ve got three options:

List<List<T>> // Which is pretty nasty

or:

Dictionary<PCIdentifier, List<T>>

Which better enunciates your intent or even:

class PCResult
{
    PCIdentifier Identifier { get; set; };
    List<T> Results { get; set; }
}

and

List<PCResult>

Personally I prefer the third, but the second is fine too.