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A Blatant Programming Question

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  • R Roger Wright

    Good article, but I still have no idea why I'd want to use a tuple. It seems like something added to C# just to make people familiar with other languages which use such constructs more comfortable. Interesting, but not something I'll spend my retirement years mastering... :)

    Will Rogers never met me.

    G Offline
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    Gary R Wheeler
    wrote on last edited by
    #13

    The big thing is that they save you from creating a throwaway class just to manage a small set of items. Apparently this is something the functional languages like F# do often. I'll freely admit though after I read the article I had a strong whiff of #define.

    Software Zen: delete this;

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    • R Roger Wright

      A tupee is good for demonstrating one's vanity, at least. I can think of no use for a tuple, though; hence the question...

      Will Rogers never met me.

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      Gary R Wheeler
      wrote on last edited by
      #14

      Exactly. My approach: if you haven't got it, flaunt it (see profile picture for details).

      Software Zen: delete this;

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      • P Phil Martin

        Things I find them very useful for: - Returning multiple values without the bother of out or ref parameters, and so I don't have to make a whole other class. - Working with Enumerable.Zip - Keys into Dictionarys so I don't have to bother writing a fast and correct Equals and GetHashCode() methods - Ensuring immutability. Unlike an array, the items are readonly. An array is faster and nicer, but it's mutable, which is sometimes a pain.

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        leppie
        wrote on last edited by
        #15

        Anonymous classes handle most of these cases and cleaner in my opinion. Who knows what Item0 and Item1 and Item2 is?

        IronScheme
        ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

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        • K Kenneth Haugland

          :laugh: Only the items could be anything, seems very much to resemble a list of different objects, witch you could send around without createing a class. I cant think of a use. WPF and binding seem to make them unnessecary, but what do I know... Im sure that someone will tell you that the planets existens depended on this class...

          Mike HankeyM Offline
          Mike HankeyM Offline
          Mike Hankey
          wrote on last edited by
          #16

          Would this resemble a Bag in any way? In some versions of C++ I've seen a Bag collection that was used as the name implies to hold any data type.

          VS2010/Atmel Studio 6.0 ToDo Manager Extension
          Version 3.0 now available. There is no place like 127.0.0.1

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          • R Roger Wright

            Not really... ;P There's a discussion going on in the C# forum about Tuples, and I'm curious what one would use them for. From browsing VS2010 Help, it appears to me that this is a way to make vectors of mixed types which, if used as a type for an Array, could allow mixed arrays. Is this correct? And what would be an example of using such a beast? Wouldn't a dataset be more efficient? Enquiring minds want to know, as they say at the checkout counter. :)

            Will Rogers never met me.

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            Espen Harlinn
            wrote on last edited by
            #17

            Tuple types were added to facilitate language interoperability and to reduce duplication in the framework. As you noticed a tuple is a simple generic data structure that holds an ordered set of items. Tuples are supported natively in languages such as F# and IronPython.

            Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Whenever methodologies become productized, objectivity is removed from the equation. -- Mike Myatt

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            • R Roger Wright

              Not really... ;P There's a discussion going on in the C# forum about Tuples, and I'm curious what one would use them for. From browsing VS2010 Help, it appears to me that this is a way to make vectors of mixed types which, if used as a type for an Array, could allow mixed arrays. Is this correct? And what would be an example of using such a beast? Wouldn't a dataset be more efficient? Enquiring minds want to know, as they say at the checkout counter. :)

              Will Rogers never met me.

              M Offline
              M Offline
              Marc Clifton
              wrote on last edited by
              #18

              Well, my biased opinion: Tuples were added to .NET languages because they are an important feature of functional languages, and since Microsoft was adding F# to be IL compatible, they needed support for tuples. Tuples are a simple way of creating typed structures on the fly (type is inferred by the usage of their items), without having to actually create a class or struct. In F#, they are even simpler than records. So, given that, tuples are useful when you need to return more than one value from a function call. For example, a success/fail along with a success/default value. Or the real and imaginary components of a complex number. I don't find tuples necessarily that useful for passing data into a function, the exception being passing the tuple return of one function into another function. Tuples do not replace lists, arrays, or other collections. Does that help? Marc

              My Blog
              Computational Types in C# and F#

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              • K Kenneth Haugland

                People that are too lazy to write classes? Or have a class that would contain many properties? Seem to be the general idea: C# 4 - Tuples[^]

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                RugbyLeague
                wrote on last edited by
                #19

                Laziness - that's why I occasionally use them. I feel dirty afterwards.

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                • R Roger Wright

                  Not really... ;P There's a discussion going on in the C# forum about Tuples, and I'm curious what one would use them for. From browsing VS2010 Help, it appears to me that this is a way to make vectors of mixed types which, if used as a type for an Array, could allow mixed arrays. Is this correct? And what would be an example of using such a beast? Wouldn't a dataset be more efficient? Enquiring minds want to know, as they say at the checkout counter. :)

                  Will Rogers never met me.

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                  P Offline
                  PIEBALDconsult
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #20

                  If you can't think of a reason, and a custom class or struct will suffice (and be more descriptive), then write a class or struct. I'll occasionally use a Tuple briefly to test something before I write a class. If you can use a class, you should use a class.

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                  • K Kenneth Haugland

                    :laugh: Only the items could be anything, seems very much to resemble a list of different objects, witch you could send around without createing a class. I cant think of a use. WPF and binding seem to make them unnessecary, but what do I know... Im sure that someone will tell you that the planets existens depended on this class...

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                    J Offline
                    jschell
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #21

                    Kenneth Haugland wrote:

                    witch you could send around without createing a class.

                    It would still require a class instance.

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                    • L leppie

                      Anonymous classes handle most of these cases and cleaner in my opinion. Who knows what Item0 and Item1 and Item2 is?

                      IronScheme
                      ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

                      J Offline
                      J Offline
                      jschell
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #22

                      leppie wrote:

                      Who knows what Item0 and Item1 and Item2 is?

                      The Tuple is a generic type so that shouldn't be a problem.

                      L 1 Reply Last reply
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                      • R Roger Wright

                        Not really... ;P There's a discussion going on in the C# forum about Tuples, and I'm curious what one would use them for. From browsing VS2010 Help, it appears to me that this is a way to make vectors of mixed types which, if used as a type for an Array, could allow mixed arrays. Is this correct? And what would be an example of using such a beast? Wouldn't a dataset be more efficient? Enquiring minds want to know, as they say at the checkout counter. :)

                        Will Rogers never met me.

                        B Offline
                        B Offline
                        BillWoodruff
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #23

                        I never thought I'd see the day when I'd vote anything posted by one of my very favorite posters, Roger Wright, a "one," but in this case I feel there is a compelling reason to do so based on what I view as a concern for the quality of CP as-a-whole, and I have fully explained that here on "Bugs and suggs:" [^]. best, Bill p.s. go ahead and down-vote me all you like: if my entire reputation on CP is wiped out, and I go "underwater," well: let's just say, I have "gills," and "don't give a damn" at nearly 69 years of age: in my opinion if a person by the time of their sixties doesn't know what their values are, and is not willing to go out-on-a-limb, and stand up for them, well ... you fill in the rest of the sentence, please ...

                        "One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us." Kurt Vonnegut

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                        • L leppie

                          Anonymous classes handle most of these cases and cleaner in my opinion. Who knows what Item0 and Item1 and Item2 is?

                          IronScheme
                          ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

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                          P Offline
                          Phil Martin
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #24

                          Anonymous classes handle exactly two of those cases.

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                          • P Phil Martin

                            Anonymous classes handle exactly two of those cases.

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                            L Offline
                            leppie
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #25

                            Within context, I will handle all of those. But yes, if exposing them non-functionally, only 2.

                            IronScheme
                            ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

                            1 Reply Last reply
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                            • J jschell

                              leppie wrote:

                              Who knows what Item0 and Item1 and Item2 is?

                              The Tuple is a generic type so that shouldn't be a problem.

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                              leppie
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #26

                              And now you have 2+ problems ;p

                              IronScheme
                              ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • B BillWoodruff

                                I never thought I'd see the day when I'd vote anything posted by one of my very favorite posters, Roger Wright, a "one," but in this case I feel there is a compelling reason to do so based on what I view as a concern for the quality of CP as-a-whole, and I have fully explained that here on "Bugs and suggs:" [^]. best, Bill p.s. go ahead and down-vote me all you like: if my entire reputation on CP is wiped out, and I go "underwater," well: let's just say, I have "gills," and "don't give a damn" at nearly 69 years of age: in my opinion if a person by the time of their sixties doesn't know what their values are, and is not willing to go out-on-a-limb, and stand up for them, well ... you fill in the rest of the sentence, please ...

                                "One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us." Kurt Vonnegut

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                                L Offline
                                leppie
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #27

                                Even if you were a mute deaf I would still upvote you ;p

                                IronScheme
                                ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

                                1 Reply Last reply
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                                • P PIEBALDconsult

                                  If you can't think of a reason, and a custom class or struct will suffice (and be more descriptive), then write a class or struct. I'll occasionally use a Tuple briefly to test something before I write a class. If you can use a class, you should use a class.

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                                  L Offline
                                  leppie
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #28

                                  People are so scared of writing something once...

                                  IronScheme
                                  ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • M Marc Clifton

                                    Well, my biased opinion: Tuples were added to .NET languages because they are an important feature of functional languages, and since Microsoft was adding F# to be IL compatible, they needed support for tuples. Tuples are a simple way of creating typed structures on the fly (type is inferred by the usage of their items), without having to actually create a class or struct. In F#, they are even simpler than records. So, given that, tuples are useful when you need to return more than one value from a function call. For example, a success/fail along with a success/default value. Or the real and imaginary components of a complex number. I don't find tuples necessarily that useful for passing data into a function, the exception being passing the tuple return of one function into another function. Tuples do not replace lists, arrays, or other collections. Does that help? Marc

                                    My Blog
                                    Computational Types in C# and F#

                                    L Offline
                                    L Offline
                                    leppie
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #29

                                    Marc Clifton wrote:

                                    tuples are useful when you need to return more than one value from a function call

                                    Yet this is still an ugly hack for returning multiple values. A proper language would be consuming the (remaining) values (on the stack) based on the continuation.

                                    IronScheme
                                    ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

                                    1 Reply Last reply
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                                    • E Espen Harlinn

                                      Tuple types were added to facilitate language interoperability and to reduce duplication in the framework. As you noticed a tuple is a simple generic data structure that holds an ordered set of items. Tuples are supported natively in languages such as F# and IronPython.

                                      Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Whenever methodologies become productized, objectivity is removed from the equation. -- Mike Myatt

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                                      L Offline
                                      leppie
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #30

                                      Given the Python argument, I would prefer .NET support PHP then too ;p

                                      IronScheme
                                      ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

                                      E 1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • L leppie

                                        Given the Python argument, I would prefer .NET support PHP then too ;p

                                        IronScheme
                                        ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

                                        E Offline
                                        E Offline
                                        Espen Harlinn
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #31

                                        Here you go: Welcome to Phalanger[^]

                                        Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Whenever methodologies become productized, objectivity is removed from the equation. -- Mike Myatt

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                                        • R RugbyLeague

                                          Laziness - that's why I occasionally use them. I feel dirty afterwards.

                                          K Offline
                                          K Offline
                                          Kenneth Haugland
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #32

                                          Ah... Just call the garbage collecter afterword, and you would be fine. :laugh:

                                          R 1 Reply Last reply
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