I love Tuples

Behzad Sedighzadeh

IMHO, in recent years, the best feature MS has added to the C# is Tuple. It helps make code cleaner and quicker to write. It can be compared to Generic lists.

Behzad

GKP1992

Behzad Sedighzadeh wrote:

It helps make code cleaner and quicker to write

Quicker to write, Okay! Cleaner? I don't think so. Create a nested tuple and now you don't know which element you are referring to when you say Item2. It makes code difficult to maintain. So for simple return types that has like 2 or 3 primitive data types tuple is fine, otherwise just create a class.

Marc Clifton

Yes, tuples are great, especially as a replacement for out string foo and I use them primarily for returning multiple things for rather low level methods when out or a C# class/struct is just overkill. The fact that the tuple parameters can be named was a huge advancement, rather than having to use Item1, Item2, etc. That said, I use them judiciously and always ask myself, if I'm using a tuple here, is that the right approach or am I compensating for a possibly bad "design." For example (this from code I have in a library):

    public (HttpStatusCode status, string content) Get(string url, Dictionary headers = null)
    {
        var client = RestClientFactory();
        var request = new RestRequest(url, Method.Get);

        headers?.ForEach(kvp => request.AddHeader(kvp.Key, kvp.Value));
        RestResponse response = client.Execute(request);

        return (response.StatusCode, response.Content);
    }

Why am I parsing out the status code and content instead of just returning the response object? One answer is that returning response may probably require a using RestSharp and even a reference to the RestSharp package in the caller project. OK, maybe that's a defensible argument, maybe not. After using this library of mine (REST is just one small part of this library) I'm not that thrilled with my initial wrapper implementation. But because I started this "pattern", it continues, like:

    public (T item, HttpStatusCode status, string content) Get(string url, Dictionary headers = null) where T : new()
    {
        var client = RestClientFactory();
        var request = new RestRequest(url, Method.Get);

        headers?.ForEach(kvp => request.AddHeader(kvp.Key, kvp.Value));
        RestResponse response = client.Execute(request);
        T ret = TryDeserialize(response);

        return (ret, response.StatusCode, response.Content);
    }

And this illustrates mashing together various potentially bad implementation/designs. The tuple now returns three things, and the TryDeserialize catches exceptions silently, returning a null for T item, and what if I want the actual deserialization exception? And now that I look at that code again after a couple years, what's with that AddHeader loop when there's a perfectly

Marc Clifton

GKP1992 wrote:

Create a nested tuple and now you don't know which element you are referring to when you say Item2

Tuple "items" can be named, so: var name = GetMyName(); where:

(string firstName, string lastName) GetMyName()
{
return ("Marc", "Clifton");
}

I can use name.firstName and name.lastName Most of the time. ;)

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PIEBALDconsult

But is that C#?

honey the codewitch

Yes

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PIEBALDconsult

I don't use them much. I usually prefer to create a class. It kinda depends on how important the thing is.

Richard Andrew x64

:-D I think there are very few people smarter than you.

The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.

TNCaver

I love them because sometimes it is convenient to return more than one value from a method, and the use case doesn't justify the overhead of creating and populating a POCO.

There are no solutions, only trade-offs.
- Thomas Sowell

A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)

Sander Rossel

Tuples and anonymous classes have drastically reduced the number of single-use classes in my code :D

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Rob Philpott

The slightly weird thing that disturbs me about that is that firstName and lastName behave/look a lot like members of a class/struct yet don't have Pascal Case naming. name.firstName vs. name.FirstName It reminds me of Javascript, and well you know what that can inflict on the soul.

Regards, Rob Philpott.

raddevus

Nice example. I fired up C# Repl and tried it out. :thumbsup:

Jeremy Falcon

I don't use C# much these days but totally agree. And, digging the positivity man. :cool:

Jeremy Falcon

Daniel Pfeffer

Like (almost) everything in C#, they have their uses. Loving them? No!

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.

Behzad Sedighzadeh

100% agreed!

Behzad