One question on Generic Collection.

[microkarl]

I am currently using a Hashtable to store a list of collection, its type includes string, integer, and dateTime. After researched a little bit on "Generic", I am very interested of using it. However, from what I know, in order to enforce type safety, the generic collection class has to be defined to allow only one type to be stored. That is, if I initialize a new instance of generic class to be string, I can't use it to store integer. So, in this case, is it better off to just stick with the old fashion Hashtable?

 

Thanks!

Carl

[PlausiblyDamp]

If you require the collection to hold multiple types of items and therefore type safety isn't a concern you may as well stick with a hash table.

 

If the various objects derive from a common base class or implement the same interface then you could use a generic using the base or interface.

 

Out of interest is there a reason why you need to store such different objecttypes in the same collection?

[microkarl]

I am retrieving elements from XML, then have to store these elements into a class as properties. These elements include, ID (integer), Name (string), StartDate (DateTime)...

[Machaira]

Can you use serialization (assuming you have control over the XML structure)?