Question

In PHP you can write

$arr = array(1,2);
list($a, $b) = $arr;

Which is basically the equivalent of

$a = $arr[0];
$b = $arr[1];

Is there an equivalent in C#?

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Just bugs me because so often I write things like

var split = action.Split('.');
string controllerName = split[0];
string actionName = split[1];

And split is just a throw-away variable that I can never think of a decent name for. “chunks”, “bits”, “pieces”, “parts”,… all meaningless jibberish.

Answer 1

You could write your own method, like:

int[] arr = new[] { 1, 2 };

int a, b;
Populate(arr, out a, out b);

static void Populate<T>(T[] arr, out T t1, out T t2)
{
    t1 = arr[0];
    t2 = arr[1];
}

I wouldn’t recommend it, though…You’d have to be careful about having the right number of parameters, and I don’t think there’s a way to do an arbitrary size – C# has the concept of “params array” in the signature, but I don’t think you can do it with “out” parameters.