Question

Would there be any problems if I did the following to imitate a liked list using a list.

Create a class like this

public class MyClass
{
 //some properties
 public MyClass Previous {get; set;}
 public MyClass Next {get; set;}
}

and add this to a generic List.

I only add elements to this list and never remove them.

I am not using the .Net LinkedList class as I had overlooked the Previous property of the LinkedListNode class. I was in a hurry to get things working.

The way I am using this class is mostly by using the ForEach extension of the List.

List<MyClass> MyList = new List<MyClass>();

//add some elements with Previous,Next set

MyList.Foreach(CalculateValues);

CalculateValues(MyClass current)
{
  MyClass prev = current.Previous; 
  //check for null and return etc
  //In some moethods I use Next
  current.SomeProperty += prev.SomeProperty; 
}

I see that the LinkedList has no ForEach method though. I could still iterate using ForEach loop.
Thanks for all the great answers.

Answer 1

Yes, you would be violating the Single Responsibility Principle by using the same class to represent both a Collection of an item and the item itself. And you wouldn’t be making use of the perfectly-good classes that come standard with the .NET library, like LinkedList<T>.