Question

We’ve got the following repository method

public IList<Foo> GetItems(int fooId, int pageIndex, int pageSize
, string sortField, string sortDir, out int totalItems)
{
// Some code
}

My question is: is it ok to use out in this way. I’m somewhat uncomfortable with out, but can’t come up with a better way to write this as a single call.

Answer 1

I found the answer that I was looking for, though not from the comments. Thank you, though for your help.

It turns out that MVC guru Rob Conery posted some time ago about using a PagedList. It’s elegant pattern and according to the blog, ScottGu has used it in demos. Basically, instead of using IList<T> and List<T>, you use IPagedList<T> and PagedList<T>. PagedList<T>: List<T>, IPagedList<T>.

public interface IPagedList
{
    int TotalCount { get; set; }
    int PageIndex  { get; set; }
    int PageSize { get; set; }
    bool IsPreviousPage { get; }
    bool IsNextPage { get; }   
}

There’s more code to it, so check out Rob’s blog.

http://blog.wekeroad.com/blog/aspnet-mvc-pagedlistt/