Question

If a class contains just string array variables, is there an easy way to initialize them all without having to type the same code over and over?

For example, if I have something like

[Serializable]
public class ReadDiagnosticEntirePointValuesResponse
{
    public string[] pointidentifier;
    public string[] presentvalue;
    public string[] priorityarray;
    public string[] alarmstate;
    public string[] outofservice;
    public string[] correctvalue;
    public string[] affect;
    public string[] covenable;
    public string[] covincrement;
    public string[] covtarget;
    public string[] covlifetime;
    public string[] historyenable;
    public string[] historyincrement;
    public string[] elapsedactivetime;
    public string[] feedbackvalue;
    public string[] rawvalue;
    ...//A lot more 
}

and I want to assign values to to them, I want to avoid doing:

        ReadDiagnosticEntirePointValuesResponse response = new ReadDiagnosticEntirePointValuesResponse();


        response.affect = new string[count];
        response.alarmstate = new string[count];
        response.correctvalue = new string[count];
        response.covenable = new string[count];
        response.covincrement = new string[count];
        response.covlifetime = new string[count];
        response.covtarget = new string[count];
        response.elapsedactivetime = new string[count];
        response.feedbackvalue = new string[count];
        response.historyenable = new string[count];
        response.historyincrement = new string[count];
        response.outofservice = new string[count];
        response.pointidentifier = new string[count];
        response.presentvalue = new string[count];
        response.priorityarray = new string[count];
        response.rawvalue = new string[count];
        ...

Sure, I could write those initialization in constructor but that still doesn’t save me from having to manually initialize them all.

What’s a good way to avoid this?

Answer 1

That is a pretty horrible way to manage your data, however, something like the following would work….

foreach(var field in GetType().GetFields()) {
    if(!field.IsStatic) field.SetValue(this, new string[count]);
}

However! I strongly suggest you rethink this design. A better mechanism would be:

class DiagnosticPoint // TODO: rename as appropriate
{  // TODO: check these all need to be strings
    public string Affect {get;set;}
    public string AlarmState {get;set;}
    ...
    public string RawValue {get;set;}
}

and have an array of that as a field:

public class ReadDiagnosticEntirePointValuesResponse
{
    DiagnosticPoint[] points;
    ...

then simply init the array:

points = new DiagnosticPoint[count];

and init each:

for(int i = 0 ; i < count ; i++) points[i] = new DiagnosticPoint();

and access via:

var alarm = points[index].AlarmState;

(etc)