Please suggest me how to separate out the data in ArrayList

Question

Hi all.

private string GenerateInsertQRY(string TableName, ArrayList mCol)
        {
            string strColumnName = "";
            string strColumnValue = "";
            string strInsertQRY = null;
            try
            {
                foreach (ClsDMLProperties Columns in mCol)
                {
                    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(strColumnName))
                    {
                        strColumnName = strColumnName + ",";
                    }
                    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(strColumnValue))
                    {
                        strColumnValue = strColumnValue + ",";
                    }
                    strColumnName = strColumnName + Columns.Col_Name;
                    if (Columns.ReplaceBlankWithNull == false)
                    {
                        if (Columns.IsNumeric == true)
                        {
                            strColumnValue = strColumnValue + Columns.Col_Value;
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            strColumnValue = strColumnValue + "'" + Columns.Col_Value+"'";
                        }
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(Columns.Col_Value))
                        {
                            strColumnValue = strColumnValue + "NULL";
                        }
                        else if (Columns.IsNumeric == true)
                        {
                            strColumnValue = strColumnValue + Columns.Col_Value;
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            strColumnValue = strColumnValue + "'" + Columns.Col_Value+"'";
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {

            }

        }
===========================
In this method I want to separate out strColumnValue and strColumnName to use them somewhere else.. How can i do this ?

Vulpes · Answer

Sure if you were using a string array then the code would be: private string[] GenerateInsertQRY(string TableName ArrayList mCol) { // existing code exactly as you have it return new string[]{strColumnName strColumnValue}; } The calling code can then 'unpack' the array as follows: string[] strColumnData = GenerateInsertQRY(TableName mCol); string strColumnName = strColumnData[0]; string strColumnValue = strColumnData[1]; or just use strColumnData[0] and strColumnData[1] directly

B M Suchitra · Answer

Hi Vulpes I had the same thing in mind but i have not used out parameters.. Could you please help me out with the coding. I am using VS2008 strColumnName has names of all the columns in the table and strColumnValues has all the values of the columns to be saved in the table.

Vulpes · Answer

If you want the method to return two strings then there are a number of ways to do it including the following: 1. You could return one string as an 'out' parameter and the other string as a return value. 2. You could concatenate the strings using a separaror which isn't present in either of them and then return a single string. The calling code would then need to split the string using this separator. 3. You could return a string array with 2 elements. 4. If you're using .NET 4.0 you could return a Tuple which is a pair of strings. To my mind #3 and #4 are cleaner than the other solutions.