Question

I have code similar to the following in many places:

var dbParams = db.ReadParams(memberID, product, GetSubscriptionFields()); Debug.Assert(dbParams.Count == 4);  _memberCode = dbParams[0]; _password = dbParams[1]; _userName = dbParams[2]; _reasonCode = dbParams[3]; 

ReadParams() returns an array of strings, the number of strings depending on the GetSubscriptionFields() function. I could use dbParams[] directly in my code, but I find it more helpful to give meaningful names to each of the values in the array. Is there a way I can get all the results directly, without going through the array?

I am looking for something like:

db.ReadParams(memberID, product, out _memberCode, out _password, out _userName, out _reasonCode); 

or

Tuple<_memberCode, _password, _userName, _reasonCode> = db.ReadParams(memberID, product); 

Of course, it has to be legal C# code 🙂

Answer 1

Why not use constants instead?

Then in your code you could have

dbParams[MEMBER_CODE] dbParams[PASSWORD] dbParams[USERNAME] dbParams[REASON_CODE] 

which meets your goal of meaningful names without changing the way the method works.