Question

learning c# on my own , in a new project i have started working on,

one of the methods, accepts a List<string> type data, passed in as a parameter
. i would like to know , now …that the need is for two of those lists, two types of data, or two groups,

and just for this example , say i have a pros and cons, or.. girls and boys,

these are actually 2 separated lists of elements or objects, i need to pass in, as a parameter
, and i want it to be passed as-one data-Type, and then, inside the method i will take care of separation of data lists , so.. instead of a couple of List objects i, thought(for a second there , that a Dictionary will be suitable…)

though i will only have one element (one item… each is a List) ,in this data type that i need to pass

what can i do to get this result ?

i will try to illustrate it :

List<string> classGirls = new List<string>();
List<string> classBoys = new List<string>();

for eace item in source… load both from the source

done List girls + List Boys are populated how would you pass them as one as a Dictionary Could though knowing you will only have One Girls And One Boys ListObjects ?

public bool foundAMatch( string Lookup, List<string> G , List<string> B){
{
    var firstGirl = G.ElementAt(0);
    var firstBoy = B.ElementAt(0);

    return firstGirl == Lookup && firstBoy !=Lookup ;
}

instead i need it to be something Like

  public bool foundAmatch(string Lookup, someDataType.... Kids)
  {
    var firstGirl = kids-girls <-- first entity in kids;
    var firstBoy = kids-boys <-- first entity in Kids; 

    return firstGirl == Lookup && firstBoy !=Lookup ;
  } 

few things in mind …as to properties of data , it should have good performance… naturally desired, though most importantly, it should be appropriate /easy to arrange and suitable for iterations using loops for sorting and as subject to all kind of statistic operations .

• question is,

how will you implement the logic , is it an existing data Type… that i am thinking of ?

if it’s not, what approach will you implement in this scenario choosing / crafting a data Type ?

Answer 1

You can solve this easily by using inheritance:

public abstract class Person
{
    public string Name { get; private set; }  // The setter is private because we only have to set this name when we create an instance

    protected Person(string name)
    {
        Name = name;
    }
}

public class Male : Person
{
    public Male(string name) : base(name)  // This constructor calls the constructor of the class it inherits and passes on the same argument
}

public class Female : Person
{
    public Female(string name) : base(name)
}

public bool IsMatch(string needle, IEnumerable<Person> haystack)
{
    var firstGirl = haystack.OfType<Female>().FirstOrDefault();
    var firstBuy = haystack.OfType<Male>().FirstOrDefault();
    return firstGirl != null &&
           firstGirl.Name == needle &&
           firstBoy != null &&
           firstBoy.Name != needle;
}

edit:

I quite like extension methods, so I’d write the method like this:

public static class PersonExtensions
{
    public static bool IsMatch(this IEnumerable<Person> haystack, string needle)
    {
        // same method logic in here
    }
}

which you can then use like:

var people = new List<Person>();
people.Add(new Male { Name = "Bob" });
people.Add(new Female { Name = "Mary" });
var isMatch = people.IsMatch("Jane");

edit2:

It’s probably even better to just have gender as a property of the Person class:

public enum Sex
{
    Male,
    Female
}

public class Person
{
    public string Name { get; private set; }
    public Sex Gender { get; private set; }

    public Person(string name, Sex gender)
    {
        Name = name;
        Gender = gender;
    }
}

and change the method to:

var firstGirl = haystack.FirstOrDefault(p => p.Gender == Gender.Female);
var firstBoy = haystack.FirstOrDefault(p => p.Gender == Gender.Male);