Chapter 27. System.Collections
The System.Collections namespace provides basic
functionality for collections of objects. It defines interfaces, base
classes, and implementations for collections such as dictionaries,
sorted lists, queues, and stacks. The base classes can also be
extended to create specialized collection types. However, the
System.Collections.Specialized namespace contains
a set of extended collection types based on this namespace, so check
there before creating your own types.Figure 27-1 and Figure 27-2 show the
types in this namespace.
On first observation, the design of these collections seems somewhat
awkward—for example, why does a
“list” seem to be broken into two
pieces: the IList interface and the
ArrayList implementation? On top of this, the
namespace defines a number of other interfaces, such as
IEnumerable and IEnumerator,
that seem unnecessary.
In fact, the design of the collection types in this namespace is
quite similar to the designs of other container libraries such as the
STL (Standard Template Library) in C++ and the Java Collections
library in JDK 1.2. By separating the interface of a collection type
(the concept of “list-ness” or
“dictionary-ness”) from the actual
implementation, you are free to assume only the absolute minimum
about the actual implementation used, and instead focus only on what
is needed in order to carry out the work. For example,
C#’s foreach construct works by
silently using the IEnumerable interface to obtain an object that ...