嵌套SortedList

Question

I am a novice at C# and come from a PHP background where multidimensional arrays are a walk in the park.

How can one create a nested/multidimensional array with a SortedList in C#? I believe from reading that the SortedList is probably the most comparative in terms of PHP functionality. I've tried the following but it throws errors:

SortedList arr = new SortedList();
arr.Add("hello",new SortedList());
arr.hello.Add("world",new SortedList());

Answer 1

What about this.

class NestedSortedList<T> : SortedList<T, NestedSortedList<T>> { }

And testing..

internal class Program
    {
        private static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var nestedSortedList = new NestedSortedList<string>();
            nestedSortedList.Add("1", new NestedSortedList<string>());
            nestedSortedList.Add("2", new NestedSortedList<string>());
            nestedSortedList.Add("3", new NestedSortedList<string>());

            nestedSortedList["1"].Add("11", new NestedSortedList<string>());
            nestedSortedList["2"].Add("21", new NestedSortedList<string>());
            nestedSortedList["2"].Add("22", new NestedSortedList<string>());

            foreach (var item in nestedSortedList)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(item);
                foreach (var value in item.Value.Values)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(value);
                }
                Console.WriteLine();
            }

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
}

This is the output

EDIT>>> Without creating NestedSortedList class

You may try the following, although you will have to deal with all those ugly casts.

internal class Program
    {
        private static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var sortedList = new SortedList();
            sortedList.Add("1", new SortedList());
            sortedList.Add("2", new SortedList());
            sortedList.Add("3", new SortedList());

            ((SortedList)sortedList["1"]).Add("11", new SortedList());
            ((SortedList)sortedList["2"]).Add("21", new SortedList());
            ((SortedList)sortedList["2"]).Add("22", new SortedList());

            foreach (DictionaryEntry dictionaryEntry in sortedList)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Key: {0}, Value: {1}",dictionaryEntry.Key,dictionaryEntry.Value);
                foreach (DictionaryEntry innerDictionaryEntry in (SortedList)dictionaryEntry.Value)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Inner >>> Key: {0}, Value: {1}", innerDictionaryEntry.Key,
                        innerDictionaryEntry.Value);
                }
                Console.WriteLine();
            }

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
}

And the output...

But please beware . Since non generic SortedList receives type object as key and value, this mean you could store whichever object you want but you will always need to cast them correctly in order to use them as its original type is intended to be used

Hope this helps

Answer 2

Make a class

    public class MyList
    {
        string name { get; set;}
        List<MyList> children { get; set; }
    }

or

    public class MyList
    {

        SortedList<string, MyList> children = new SortedList<string, MyList>();
    }