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Store string data using an array (C#)

A task that I can't seem to solve, even after hours and hours of trying.
Basically, I have a phonebook that takes input from the user: name and number (both string type), which becomes a Contact.
I'm supposed to store the Contact in an Array, and the user shall both be able to add and also delete data (Contact) from the array, via the methods Create and Delete.
I made an own Repository class to handle the data (Contact also has an own little class), but I used List to store the data, so I could simply use Add and Remove, so my code looks like this:
public class Repository
{
List<Contact> storagelist;
public Repository() {
storagelist = new List<Contact>();
}
public void Create(Contact item) //Adds the item to the list
{
storagelist.Add(item);
}
public bool Delete(Contact item) //Removes the item
{
if (!storagelist.Contains(item))
return false;
storagelist.Remove(item);
return true;
}
}
What I am looking for, is how do exactly this, have these 2 features of adding and removing a Contact, but store the data in an Array instead.
Since arrays (to my knowledge) has to have a fixed, pre-defined size I have no idea how it could be used in exactly the same way as the List. The array size shall always be the same as the amount of Contacts that are stored, but how can this be done when an array's size is fixed??
So, how to create an array, that always has the same size as the amount of Contacts that are stored, and how to Add and Remove to/from this array?
Help is very much appreciated!
EDIT: Thanks for all responses! Every answer was helpful in the process (Omar and person66 in particular!).
I solved the Removal by "moving" the entire array after the delete-element, to 1 index lower, and finally resizing the array to be smaller. Like so:
int deleteIndex = Array.IndexOf(storagelist, item);
for (int index = deleteIndex + 1; index < storagelist.Length; index++)
{
storagelist[index - 1] = storagelist[index];
}
Array.Resize(ref storagelist, storagelist.Length - 1);

You are right in that array sizes are fixed. You can, however, use Array.Resize() to create a new array of the specified size with all the current array data. So for adding you would resize to 1 larger and add the new contact at the end. For removing you will have to use a loop to shift all the elements in the array past the one being removed back one spot, then resize it to be 1 smaller.
EDIT: A simpler option for removing would be to use Array.Copy():
Array.Copy(a, deleteIndex + 1, a, deleteIndex, a.Length - (deleteIndex + 1));
Array.Resize(ref a, a.Length - 1);
A list is a much better solution to this problem, I don't know why you would ever want to use an array for this.

A List just ends up using an array for it's storage anyway. The way a list works is it is initializes an array with a certain amount of storage then if it's capacity is exceeded it recreates an array with a larger size and copies the elements back. You could try this approach, except you'd just be recreating what a list does.
The other option is just declare an arbitrarily large array of 100,000 elements or so. A number which you know will not be exceeded.
For size you can write your own function which keeps track of the number of contacts in the array.

You can use a generic list. Under the hood the List class uses an array for storage but does so in a fashion that allows it to grow effeciently.
Take a look at this link for more details, it can be helpfull.

var contacts = new[]
{
new { Name = "Foo", Phone = "9999999999" },
new { Name = "Bar", Phone = "0000000000" }
};
You can create an array of anonymous object and then use linq to delete objects from array.
You can create a new object and insert into anonymous object variable.

Make a list readonly in c#

I have this example code. What I want to do is to make it so that the "Nums" value can only be written to using the "AddNum" method.
namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
public class Person
{
string myName = "N/A";
int myAge = 0;
List<int> _nums = new List<int>();
public List<int> Nums
{
get
{
return _nums;
}
}
public void AddNum(int NumToAdd)
{
_nums.Add(NumToAdd);
}
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }
}
}
Somehow, I've tried a bunch of things regarding AsReadOnly() and the readonly keyword, but I can't seem to get it to do what I want it to do.
Here is the sample of the code I have to access the property.
Person p1 = new Person();
p1.Nums.Add(25); //access 1
p1.AddNum(37); //access 2
Console.WriteLine("press any key");
Console.ReadLine();
I really want "access 1" to fail, and "access 2" to be the ONLY way that the value can be set. Thanks in advance for the help.

√ DO use ReadOnlyCollection, a subclass of ReadOnlyCollection,
or in rare cases IEnumerable for properties or return values
representing read-only collections.
The quote from this article.
You should have something like this:
List<int> _nums = new List<int>();
public ReadOnlyCollection<int> Nums
{
get
{
return _nums.AsReadOnly();
}
}

In general, collection types make poor properties because even when a collection is wrapped in ReadOnlyCollection, it's inherently unclear what:
IEnumerable<int> nums = myPerson.Nums;
myPerson.AddNum(23);
foreach(int i in nums) // Should the 23 be included!?
...
is supposed to mean. Is the object returned from Nums a snapshot of the numbers that existed when it called, is it a live view?
A cleaner approach is to have a method called something like GetNumsAsArray which returns a new array each time it's called; it may also be helpful in some cases to have a GetNumsAsList variant depending upon what the caller will want to do with the numbers. Some methods only work with arrays, and some only work with lists, so if only one of the above is provided some callers will have to call it and then convert the returned object to the required type.
If performance-sensitive callers will be needing to use this code a lot, it may be helpful to have a more general-purpose method:
int CopyNumsIntoArray(int sourceIndex, int reqCount, ref int[] dest,
int destIndex, CopyCountMode mode);
where CopyCountMode indicates what the code should do the number of items available starting at sourceIndex is greater or less than reqCount; the method should either return the number of items that were available, or throw an exception if it violated the caller's stated expectations. Some callers might start by create and passing in a 10-item array but be prepared to have the method replace it with a bigger array if there are more than ten items to be returned; others might expect that there will be exactly 23 items and be unprepared to handle any other number. Using a parameter to specify the mode will allow one method to service many kinds of callers.
Although many collection authors don't bother including any method that fits the above pattern, such methods can greatly improve efficiency in cases where code wants to work with a significant minority of a collection (e.g. 1,000 items out of a collection of 50,000). In the absence of such methods, code wishing to work with such a range must either ask for a copy of the whole thing (very wasteful) or request thousands of items individually (also wasteful). Allowing the caller to supply the destination array would improve efficiency in the case where the same method makes many queries, especially if the destination array would be large enough to be put on the large object heap.

Sort one List<> based on another

Say I have
List<int> ages = new List<int>() { 8, 5, 3, 9, 2, 1, 7 };
List<int> marks = new List<int>() { 12, 17, 08, 15, 19, 02, 11 };
I can sort my marks by ages like this:
while (true)
{
bool swapped = false;
for (int i = 0; i < ages.Count - 1; i++)
if (ages[i] > ages[i + 1])
{
int tmp = ages[i];
ages[i] = ages[i + 1];
ages[i + 1] = tmp;
tmp = marks[i];
marks[i] = marks[i + 1];
marks[i + 1] = tmp;
swapped = true;
}
if (!swapped)
break;
}
Now I want to put this into a function that accepts any two lists. The first parameter will be the reference list, the numerical or comparable list. The second parameter will be the list containing the data.
For example:
public static void Sort<T>(List<T> RefList, List<T> DataList)
{
// sorting logic here...
}
There are a few problems:
First of all, T is almost certainly not the same type in RefList and DataList. RefList might be dates, integers, or doubles; whereas DataList is free to be absolutely anything. I need to be able to receive two, arbitrary generic types.
Secondly, I cannot seem to use the > operator with the T in this line:
if (ages[i] > ages[i + 1])
Perhaps my whole approach is wrong.
By the way, I have read responses to similar questions that suggest that the two lists should be combined into a single list of a compound data type. This isn't practical at all for my application. All I want to do is write a static function that somehow sorts one list based on the elements of another.

To sort one list the way you want you actually need to somehow keep references from items in first list to they weight/keys in the second list. No existing methods do that as you can't easily associate metadata with arbitrary values (i.e. if first list is list of int as in your case there is nothing to map to keys in second list). Your only reasonable option is to sort 2 lists at the same time and make association by index - again no existing classes to help.
It may be much easier to use solution that you reject. I.e. simply Zip and OrderBy, than recreate first list:
ages = ages
.Zip(marks, (a,m)=> new {age = a; mark = m;})
.OrderBy(v => v.mark)
.Select(v=>v.age)
.ToList();
Note (courtesy of phoog): if you need to do this type of sorting with Array there is Array.Sort that allows exactly this operatiion (see phoog's answer for details).

There's no framework method to do this with List<T>, but if you don't mind putting the data into two arrays, you can use one of the Array.Sort() overloads that takes two arrays as arguments. The first array is the keys, and the second is the values, so your code might look like this (leaving aside the step of getting arrays from the lists):
Array.Sort(ages, marks);
The specifics of getting the values into arrays and then back into lists would depend, among other things, on whether you need to end up with the same list sorted appropriately or whether it's okay to return a new list with the data in the desired order.

Use:
public static void Sort<TR, TD>(IList<TR> refList, IList<TD> dataList)
where TR : System.IComparable<TR>
where TD : System.IComparable<TD>
{
...
}
and then use:
refList[i].CompareTo(refList[i+1])
instead of the operators.
.Net numbers already implement IComparable, and you can use overloads that allow you to specify a different IComparable.

If I understand "I can sort my marks by ages like this:" properly,
I would like to suggest the below to eliminate much confusion.
struct Student{
int age;
int marks;
};
List<Student> students = {{8,12}, ...};
Now you can sort according to age and marks is accordingly sorted automatically.
If it is not possible, you need to fix the code as below.
First of all, T is almost certainly not the same type in RefList and DataList.
Then you need 2 parameters T1, T2. Just T implies the types are the same.
public static void Sort<RefType, DataType>(List<RefType> RefList, List<DataType> DataList)
{
You can also zip the two lists together as suggested by Mechanical Snail and explained in Looping through 2 Lists at once

How delete an item from struct array in C#

I have a struct in C# and I define and array list of my struct based on my code that I express here. I add items in my array list, but I need to delete a few rows from my list too. Could you help me how can I delete item or items from my struct array list:
public struct SwitchList
{
public int m_Value1, m_Value2;
public int mValue1
{
get { return m_Value1; }
set {m_Value1 = value; }
}
public int mValue2
{
get { return m_Value2; }
set {m_Value2 = value; }
}
}
//Define an array list of struct
SwitchList[] mSwitch = new SwitchList[10];
mSwitch[0].mValue1=1;
mSwitch[0].mValue2=2;
mSwitch[1].mValue1=3;
mSwitch[1].mValue2=4;
mSwitch[2].mValue1=5;
mSwitch[2].mValue2=6;
Now how can I delete one of my items, for example item 1.
Thank you.

Arrays are fixed length data structures.
You will need to create a new array, sized one less than the original and copy all items to it except the one you want to delete and start using the new array instead of the original.
Why not use a List<T> instead? It is a dynamic structure that lets you add and remove items.

You will need to move elements around and resize the array (which is expensive), since there is some complexity there you going to want to hide it in class that just presents the collection without exposing the implementation details of how its stored. Fortunately Microsoft has already provided a class that does just this called List<T> which along with a few other collection types in System.Collections.Generic namespace meet most common collection needs.
as a side note, you should use auto-properties instead of the trivial property style that you ha

That's not possible, because an array is a fixed size block of elements. Because structs are values types and not reference types, you also can't just set the element zo null. One option would be to create a new smaller array and to copy your remaining values to the new array. But the better approach would be to use a List in my opinion.

If you really, really want to use arrays and move things around, here are some examples of how to do it:
{
// Remove first element from mSwitch using a for loop.
var newSwitch = new SwitchList[mSwitch.Length - 1];
for (int i = 1; i < mSwitch.Length; i++)
newSwitch[i - 1] = mSwitch[i];
mSwitch = newSwitch;
}
{
// Remove first element from mSwitch using Array.Copy.
var newSwitch = new SwitchList[mSwitch.Length - 1];
Array.Copy(mSwitch, 1, newSwitch, 0, mSwitch.Length - 1);
mSwitch = newSwitch;
}

How to initialize a List<T> to a given size (as opposed to capacity)?

.NET offers a generic list container whose performance is almost identical (see Performance of Arrays vs. Lists question). However they are quite different in initialization.
Arrays are very easy to initialize with a default value, and by definition they already have certain size:
string[] Ar = new string[10];
Which allows one to safely assign random items, say:
Ar[5]="hello";
with list things are more tricky. I can see two ways of doing the same initialization, neither of which is what you would call elegant:
List<string> L = new List<string>(10);
for (int i=0;i<10;i++) L.Add(null);
or
string[] Ar = new string[10];
List<string> L = new List<string>(Ar);
What would be a cleaner way?
EDIT: The answers so far refer to capacity, which is something else than pre-populating a list. For example, on a list just created with a capacity of 10, one cannot do L[2]="somevalue"
EDIT 2: People wonder why I want to use lists this way, as it is not the way they are intended to be used. I can see two reasons:
One could quite convincingly argue that lists are the "next generation" arrays, adding flexibility with almost no penalty. Therefore one should use them by default. I'm pointing out they might not be as easy to initialize.
What I'm currently writing is a base class offering default functionality as part of a bigger framework. In the default functionality I offer, the size of the List is known in advanced and therefore I could have used an array. However, I want to offer any base class the chance to dynamically extend it and therefore I opt for a list.

List<string> L = new List<string> ( new string[10] );

I can't say I need this very often - could you give more details as to why you want this? I'd probably put it as a static method in a helper class:
public static class Lists
{
public static List<T> RepeatedDefault<T>(int count)
{
return Repeated(default(T), count);
}
public static List<T> Repeated<T>(T value, int count)
{
List<T> ret = new List<T>(count);
ret.AddRange(Enumerable.Repeat(value, count));
return ret;
}
}
You could use Enumerable.Repeat(default(T), count).ToList() but that would be inefficient due to buffer resizing.
Note that if T is a reference type, it will store count copies of the reference passed for the value parameter - so they will all refer to the same object. That may or may not be what you want, depending on your use case.
EDIT: As noted in comments, you could make Repeated use a loop to populate the list if you wanted to. That would be slightly faster too. Personally I find the code using Repeat more descriptive, and suspect that in the real world the performance difference would be irrelevant, but your mileage may vary.

Use the constructor which takes an int ("capacity") as an argument:
List<string> = new List<string>(10);
EDIT: I should add that I agree with Frederik. You are using the List in a way that goes against the entire reasoning behind using it in the first place.
EDIT2:
EDIT 2: What I'm currently writing is a base class offering default functionality as part of a bigger framework. In the default functionality I offer, the size of the List is known in advanced and therefore I could have used an array. However, I want to offer any base class the chance to dynamically extend it and therefore I opt for a list.
Why would anyone need to know the size of a List with all null values? If there are no real values in the list, I would expect the length to be 0. Anyhow, the fact that this is cludgy demonstrates that it is going against the intended use of the class.

Create an array with the number of items you want first and then convert the array in to a List.
int[] fakeArray = new int[10];
List<int> list = fakeArray.ToList();

If you want to initialize the list with N elements of some fixed value:
public List<T> InitList<T>(int count, T initValue)
{
return Enumerable.Repeat(initValue, count).ToList();
}

Why are you using a List if you want to initialize it with a fixed value ?
I can understand that -for the sake of performance- you want to give it an initial capacity, but isn't one of the advantages of a list over a regular array that it can grow when needed ?
When you do this:
List<int> = new List<int>(100);
You create a list whose capacity is 100 integers. This means that your List won't need to 'grow' until you add the 101th item.
The underlying array of the list will be initialized with a length of 100.

This is an old question, but I have two solutions. One is fast and dirty reflection; the other is a solution that actually answers the question (set the size not the capacity) while still being performant, which none of the answers here do.
Reflection
This is quick and dirty, and should be pretty obvious what the code does. If you want to speed it up, cache the result of GetField, or create a DynamicMethod to do it:
public static void SetSize<T>(this List<T> l, int newSize) =>
l.GetType().GetField("_size", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance).SetValue(l, newSize);
Obviously a lot of people will be hesitant to put such code into production.
ICollection<T>
This solution is based around the fact that the constructor List(IEnumerable<T> collection) optimizes for ICollection<T> and immediately adjusts the size to the correct amount, without iterating it. It then calls the collections CopyTo to do the copy.
The code for the List<T> constructor is as follows:
public List(IEnumerable<T> collection) {
....
ICollection<T> c = collection as ICollection<T>;
if (collection is ICollection<T> c)
{
int count = c.Count;
if (count == 0)
{
_items = s_emptyArray;
}
else {
_items = new T[count];
c.CopyTo(_items, 0);
_size = count;
}
}
So we can completely optimally pre-initialize the List to the correct size, without any extra copying.
How so? By creating an ICollection<T> object that does nothing other than return a Count. Specifically, we will not implement anything in CopyTo which is the only other function called.
private struct SizeCollection<T> : ICollection<T>
{
public SizeCollection(int size) =>
Count = size;
public void Add(T i){}
public void Clear(){}
public bool Contains(T i)=>true;
public void CopyTo(T[]a, int i){}
public bool Remove(T i)=>true;
public int Count {get;}
public bool IsReadOnly=>true;
public IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator()=>null;
IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()=>null;
}
public List<T> InitializedList<T>(int size) =>
new List<T>(new SizeCollection<T>(size));
We could in theory do the same thing for AddRange/InsertRange for an existing array, which also accounts for ICollection<T>, but the code there creates a new array for the supposed items, then copies them in. In such case, it would be faster to just empty-loop Add:
public void SetSize<T>(this List<T> l, int size)
{
if(size < l.Count)
l.RemoveRange(size, l.Count - size);
else
for(size -= l.Count; size > 0; size--)
l.Add(default(T));
}

Initializing the contents of a list like that isn't really what lists are for. Lists are designed to hold objects. If you want to map particular numbers to particular objects, consider using a key-value pair structure like a hash table or dictionary instead of a list.

You seem to be emphasizing the need for a positional association with your data, so wouldn't an associative array be more fitting?
Dictionary<int, string> foo = new Dictionary<int, string>();
foo[2] = "string";

The accepted answer (the one with the green check mark) has an issue.
The problem:
var result = Lists.Repeated(new MyType(), sizeOfList);
// each item in the list references the same MyType() object
// if you edit item 1 in the list, you are also editing item 2 in the list
I recommend changing the line above to perform a copy of the object. There are many different articles about that:
String.MemberwiseClone() method called through reflection doesn't work, why?
https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsdesktop/CSDeepCloneObject-8a53311e
If you want to initialize every item in your list with the default constructor, rather than NULL, then add the following method:
public static List<T> RepeatedDefaultInstance<T>(int count)
{
List<T> ret = new List<T>(count);
for (var i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
ret.Add((T)Activator.CreateInstance(typeof(T)));
}
return ret;
}

You can use Linq to cleverly initialize your list with a default value. (Similar to David B's answer.)
var defaultStrings = (new int[10]).Select(x => "my value").ToList();
Go one step farther and initialize each string with distinct values "string 1", "string 2", "string 3", etc:
int x = 1;
var numberedStrings = (new int[10]).Select(x => "string " + x++).ToList();

string [] temp = new string[] {"1","2","3"};
List<string> temp2 = temp.ToList();

After thinking again, I had found the non-reflection answer to the OP question, but Charlieface beat me to it. So I believe that the correct and complete answer is https://stackoverflow.com/a/65766955/4572240
My old answer:
If I understand correctly, you want the List<T> version of new T[size], without the overhead of adding values to it.
If you are not afraid the implementation of List<T> will change dramatically in the future (and in this case I believe the probability is close to 0), you can use reflection:
public static List<T> NewOfSize<T>(int size) {
var list = new List<T>(size);
var sizeField = list.GetType().GetField("_size",BindingFlags.Instance|BindingFlags.NonPublic);
sizeField.SetValue(list, size);
return list;
}
Note that this takes into account the default functionality of the underlying array to prefill with the default value of the item type. All int arrays will have values of 0 and all reference type arrays will have values of null. Also note that for a list of reference types, only the space for the pointer to each item is created.
If you, for some reason, decide on not using reflection, I would have liked to offer an option of AddRange with a generator method, but underneath List<T> just calls Insert a zillion times, which doesn't serve.
I would also like to point out that the Array class has a static method called ResizeArray, if you want to go the other way around and start from Array.
To end, I really hate when I ask a question and everybody points out that it's the wrong question. Maybe it is, and thanks for the info, but I would still like an answer, because you have no idea why I am asking it. That being said, if you want to create a framework that has an optimal use of resources, List<T> is a pretty inefficient class for anything than holding and adding stuff to the end of a collection.

A notice about IList:
MSDN IList Remarks:
"IList implementations fall into three categories: read-only, fixed-size, and variable-size. (...). For the generic version of this interface, see
System.Collections.Generic.IList<T>."
IList<T> does NOT inherits from IList (but List<T> does implement both IList<T> and IList), but is always variable-size.
Since .NET 4.5, we have also IReadOnlyList<T> but AFAIK, there is no fixed-size generic List which would be what you are looking for.

This is a sample I used for my unit test. I created a list of class object. Then I used forloop to add 'X' number of objects that I am expecting from the service.
This way you can add/initialize a List for any given size.
public void TestMethod1()
{
var expected = new List<DotaViewer.Interface.DotaHero>();
for (int i = 0; i < 22; i++)//You add empty initialization here
{
var temp = new DotaViewer.Interface.DotaHero();
expected.Add(temp);
}
var nw = new DotaHeroCsvService();
var items = nw.GetHero();
CollectionAssert.AreEqual(expected,items);
}
Hope I was of help to you guys.

A bit late but first solution you proposed seems far cleaner to me : you dont allocate memory twice.
Even List constrcutor needs to loop through array in order to copy it; it doesn't even know by advance there is only null elements inside.
1.
- allocate N
- loop N
Cost: 1 * allocate(N) + N * loop_iteration
2.
- allocate N
- allocate N + loop ()
Cost : 2 * allocate(N) + N * loop_iteration
However List's allocation an loops might be faster since List is a built-in class, but C# is jit-compiled sooo...