How do I extend a Hashtable to have two object values? Or is there another object that would work?

How about creating a class that holds your two values. Then the HashTable can hold one value that is an instance of your two-value class.

If you are set on creating a two-value HashTable, then perhaps you could extend the standard HashTable, inclue a private field of a regular HashTable that holds your second values. Then you override the inherited HashTable's various methods and wire together the inherited instance and the interal instance to link to two values. Of course, this raises the question of "how do I specify which value I'm getting back?" You'll have to create additional methods with a parameter to indicate which of the two values to get.

Personally I think it would be much easier to just use the first suggestion:

((MyTwoValueClass)aHashTable("somekey")).Value1
((MyTwoValueClass)aHashTable("somekey")).Value2

-Peter

The first one looks like the direction I need to go. After constructing the code below, I tried to construct what you described but haven't(obviously) fully understood ((MyTwoValueClass)aHashTable("somekey")).Value1. ((t2)t1(1)). doesn't display a list of my class one variables. Where am I going wrong?


  private void Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e){
    Hashtable t1 = new Hashtable();
    container t2 = new container();
    t2.Parsed(true);
    t2.Url("www.somewhere.com");
    t1.Add(1,t2);
  }
}

public class container{
  private string URL;
  private bool PARSED;
  public container(){}

  public string Url{
    get{
      return URL;
    }set{
      URL=value;
    }
  }
  public bool Parsed{
    get{
      return PARSED;
    }set{
      PARSED=value;
    }
  }
}

You are on the right track. The problem I see is the way you are using the properties. Try this:

    Hashtable t1 = new Hashtable();
    container t2 = new container();
    t2.Parsed = true;
    t2.Url = "www.somewhere.com";
    t1.Add(1,t2);

The syntax I suggested is the C# casting syntax:

(<Class to convert to>)<variable to convert>;

What I described is the way you would get at the particular properties from an instance of your class as stored in a hash table (because the hash table stores everything as objects).

((container)HashTable[...]).Url;

-Peter

Thanks! I ended up with:

t1.Add(1,new container());
((container)t1[1]).Url="www.somewhere.com";
((container)t1[1]).Parsed=true;

An even better way (so that you don't have to have two lines that convert the same object off the hash table) would be to add a smarter constructor to your class, then call then when you create the object.

First add this constructor to your container class:

    public container(string url, bool parsed){
        this.URL = url;
        this.PARSED = parsed;
    }

Then you can create a new instance and add it to the hash table like this:

    t1.Add(1,new container("www.somewhere.com", true));

This will save you a lot of lines when you get into creating more instances.

-Peter

Thanks! That cut down on some clutter.

How can I use ContainsValue to see if a value exists in this hashtable?