In this article we will get a little deeper into some C# programming by looping through arrays and practicing using types (which are basically objects).

In C#, everything is an object, including arrays. I understand the concept of an array, but I really wanted to get more comfortable with using arrays in C#.

So I created a very simple Console Application that uses loops to create an array and output the results to the console. I also wanted to get more familiar with working with classes and objects in the C# language.

The first thing I did in C# Express Edition was create a new project. I then right clicked the project and selected Add: Class and named the class Stores.

This is the Stores.cs Class file:

using System;
using System.Collections;

namespace Stores
{
    public class Stores
    {
        // this will contain all the store data
        public ArrayList stores_arraylist = new ArrayList();        

        /*
         * Create the Stores
         */
        public void getStores()
        {
            string[] currentStore;

            // add 10 stores
            for (int storeNumber = 1; storeNumber < 11; storeNumber++)
            {
                // add the data for the current store
                currentStore = new string[] {
                    "Store #" + storeNumber,
                    "Number of Customers: " + storeNumber
                };

                // add the current store information to the ArrayList
                stores_arraylist.Add(currentStore);
            }
        }

        /*
         * Print out each Store
         */
        public void printStores()
        {
            // first loop throught each item in the arrayList
            foreach (string[] store in stores_arraylist)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("-------");
                // now loop through each item in the array
                foreach (string store_info in store)
                {
                    Console.Write(store_info + "n");
                }
            }
        }

    }
}

I then added this code to the Main method in Program.cs file:

Stores myStores = new Stores();
myStores.getStores();
myStores.printStores();

Press Ctrl + F5 and you should see each stores’ info printed to the console.

C# does not have what we call associated arrays in PHP (which basically are keys/indexes that are text). This is good in a sense, because you know that the first key in a C# array will always be 0, and then 1, etc… I’m a little bummed because I usually made the primary key in a table the key/index of each element in an array in PHP (but there really is no downside in the way C# is setup). With that said, I am really enjoying learning PHP.

PHP is starting to look more like a bath toy compared to C#. In fact, I’m learning why some people have a hard time considering PHP a true OO programming language….but PHP does what it was meant to do, which was to create websites quickly.