Transferring .net experience in VB to a second .net language

[SomethingToChatWith]

So i'm taking on C# as my second programming language and its been pretty fun so far. Having experience in VB has helped a lot, so much so I think everything I know about C# I've learned in the last week or so, but...

C#'s not as easy to transfer to as I thought. I'm doing a fun little console application that creates two string collections that reference a single array (one for names and one for colors), assigns the string values, and than finally outputs each person's favorite color to the console. I did it first in VB and its working fine:

Module Module1

Public

Structure

Lists

'Holds a list of strings

Dim

ItemsList

As

System.Collections.Generic.List(

Of

String

)

End

Structure

Public

Sub

Main()

'Create an reference to the Lists structure

Dim

NewLists(1)

As

Lists

'Create two new instances to the List structure and two new

'instances of System.Collections.Generic Lists for the ItemsList

'member of Lists.

NewLists(0) =

New

Lists

'List of names

NewLists(1) =

New

Lists

'List of colors

NewLists(0).ItemsList =

New

System.Collections.Generic.List(

Of

String

)

NewLists(1).ItemsList =

New

System.Collections.Generic.List(

Of

String

)

'Assign the names to the first list. Assign the favorite colors of

'each person to the second.

NewLists(0).ItemsList.Add(

"Jim"

)

NewLists(1).ItemsList.Add(

"Blue"

)

NewLists(0).ItemsList.Add(

"Jack"

)

NewLists(1).ItemsList.Add(

"Black"

)

'Output what color each person likes.

Console.WriteLine(NewLists(0).ItemsList(0) &

" likes "

& NewLists(1).ItemsList(0))

Console.Write(NewLists(0).ItemsList(1) &

" likes "

& NewLists(1).ItemsList(1))

Console.Read()

'So I can see the output when debugging

End

Sub

End Module

So basically when I run the app, I get two lines:

Jim likes Blue

Jack likes Black

I seem to be having trouble with C# array declarations of a custom type (in my case a structure). Anyone know what I'm doing wrong here? C# version:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace ConsoleApplication2

{

class

Program

{

public

struct

Lists

{

//Holds a list of strings

public

List

<

String

> ItemsList;

}

static

void

Main()

{

//Create two references to the Lists structure

//Error: "; expected"

Lists

[2] NewLists;

//Rest of program appears to have been written correctly?...

//Create two new instances to the List structure and two new

//instances of System.Collections.Generic Lists for the ItemsList

//member of Lists.

NewLists[0] =

new

Lists

();

NewLists[1] =

new

Lists

();

NewLists[0].ItemsList =

new

List

<

String

>();

NewLists[1].ItemsList =

new

List

<

String

>();

//Assign the names to the first list. Assign the favorite colors of

//each person to the second.

NewLists[0].ItemsList.Add(

"Jim"

);

NewLists[1].ItemsList.Add(

"Blue"

);

NewLists[0].ItemsList.Add(

"Jack"

);

NewLists[1].ItemsList.Add(

"Black"

);

//Output what color each person likes.

Console

.WriteLine(NewLists[0].ItemsList[0] +

" likes "

+ NewLists[1].ItemsList[0]);

Console

.Write(NewLists[0].ItemsList[1] +

" likes "

+ NewLists[1].ItemsList[1]);

Console

.Read();

//So I can see the output when debugging

}

}

}

[SomethingToChatWith]

Never mind, found the solution:

Lists[] NewLists;

NewLists = new Lists[2];

OR

Lists[] NewLists = new Lists[2];

Declaration of the array without a size won't give me errors.

Hope this helps someone else :)

[shawty]

Heh... always the simplest of things ain't it :-)

If your messing with arrays and such, you might want to try using the new generic list types in .NET 3.5 EG:

List<String> myStrings = new List<String>(){
  "Jim",
  "Blue",
  "Jack",
  "Black"
}

It's makes things much easier beacuse you can use them like a stack, also there great for custom data:

public class myClass
{
  string name = "";
  string color = "";
}

List<myClass> people = new List<myClass>(){
  new myClass(){ name = "Jim", color = "Blue" },
  new myClass(){ name = "Jack",color = "Black"}
}

Because it's a class, it can have methods too, so each element in the list can still access it's methods... EG:

string color = people[1].getColor();  // Assuming you'd defined it.