parameters in C# method

Question

I want to pass 5 parameters in a method in C#. 3 of those are int i, string s,int x, ref sVal(string),ref iVal(int).
What is the good approach to do this? Should I use param[]args, list,object??

Thanks
Shals

Vulpes · Answer

I'd just pass them individually. You have a mixture of int and string which makes using any kind of collection awkward as collections are most efficient when they are strongly typed. Worse still ints would need to be boxed if you use a collection of objects. However the clincher here is that two of the parameters are being passed by reference rather than by value. You can't make that distinction when using a collection where the whole collection needs to be passed either by value or by reference.

fancy · Answer

well as u suggested I wud rather pass it as individual member bcoz for 2 ref parameters creating an object wud not make sense for me and pass it with 3 by value parameters .. thanks again for all ur effort ..

Vulpes · Answer

Incidentally there is a hack you can use to effectively pass some params arguments by reference. This is best illustrated by an example but it's pretty ugly as you'll see: using System; class Test { static void Main() { int i = 3; string s = Good; int x = 4; string sval = New; int ival = 5; object[] objs = {sval ival}; MyMethod(i s x objs); sval = (string)objs[0]; ival = (int)objs[1]; Console.WriteLine(i); Console.WriteLine(s); Console.WriteLine(x); Console.WriteLine(sval); Console.WriteLine(ival); Console.ReadKey(); } static void MyMethod(params object[] p) { p[0] = 6; p[1] = Bad; p[2] = 8; ((object[])p[3])[0] = Old; ((object[])p[3])[1] = 10; } } The output is: 3 Good 4 Old 10

Vulpes · Answer

That's right - you can't combine params with either ref or out.

fancy · Answer

so that means I cannot pass parameters as params object[] args also?? In this collection I can pass string and int though but then I guess I wont be able to combine it with ref parameters ??

fancy · Answer

thanks for the quick reply...I agree with your view...