I love Tuples

[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

Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

[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