c# Class object - What is the best way to store/retrieve a multiple-value list?

user_5813620 0
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I'm teaching myself how to use classes in c#. I have a 'what's the best way' question I'm hoping someone with experience can give me guidance on.

Say I have a class object for a 'Teacher'. The class has members for the teacher's name, grade level, pay rate, and so on. I'd also like to store a variable-length list of properties for him. If he has various roles for different courses, like this:

English 1A       |  Instructor
English Lit      |  Advisor
Beginning Math   |  Substitute
Study Hall       |  Monitor
English 6b       |  Instructor

I'd like to store this information in his class object, and be able to access it in my code. I've tried an ArrayList, a HashTable, and a List<> (which doesn't let me store multiple columns, I don't think), but my approaches all feel like clunky workarounds. I'm leaning toward doing it this way:

Storing 2 columns into a List

This guy suggests creating a class object with two members and storing new instances of the class in a list. Good idea, but again, it has a 'workaround' feel to it.

Is there one "Right" way to do what I'm trying to do? Or can somebody suggest a more direct approach? Any thoughts are appreciated.

list hashtable class arrays c#
2 Answers

This guy suggests creating a class object with two members and storing new instances of the class in a list.

This is the most common approach. Over time you might want to add fields to your notion of a 'Role' and having a class dedicated for it makes that easy.

You could use a more complicated approach like using a Dictionary<string, string>, a list of tuples, or a DataTable to store this kind of information in memory, but you usually would only use those approaches when you have a specific reason to use them (e.g. what you are modeling will never have additional properties/fields, or you are pulling from an API that returns DataTables for you).

user_4889050

I think the best way to go about it is to use a dictionary. Dictionaries are best when two values are directly tied to one another, which in this case they are. I'm assuming there's a predetermined amount of roles you can be, so I would make an Enum for roles, and use that as a key to the dictionary. Something like this:

public enum Role
{
    Instructor,
    Advisor,
    Substitute,
    Monitor
}

Then your dictionary would look like this:

Dictionary<Role, List<string>> rolesDict = new Dictionary<Role, List<string>>();

rolesDict.Add(Role.Instructor, new List<string>() { "English 1A", "English 6b" });
rolesDict.Add(Role.Advisor, new List<string>() { "English Lit" });
rolesDict.Add(Role.Substitute, new List<string>() { "Beginning Math" });
rolesDict.Add(Role.Substitute, new List<string>() { "Study Hall" });

And then you can easily access the courses associated with each role. So for example, if you want to see what courses the teacher is an instructor for, you would do something like this:

List<string> courses = rolesDict[Role.Instructor];

for (int i = 0; i < courses.Count; i++)
{
   //your code here
}

Hope that helps!

user_196935500
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