What and When to use Tuple?

c# .net c#-4.0 .net-4.0 tuples
Donny picture Donny · Nov 30, 2012 · Viewed 115.8k times · Source

May someone please explain what a Tuple is and how to use it in a Real World Scenario. I would like to find out how this can enrich my coding experience?

Answer

Adil picture Adil · Nov 30, 2012

This msdn article explains it very well with examples, "A tuple is a data structure that has a specific number and sequence of elements".

Tuples are commonly used in four ways:

  1. To represent a single set of data. For example, a tuple can represent a database record, and its components can represent individual fields of the record.

  2. To provide easy access to, and manipulation of, a data set.

  3. To return multiple values from a method without using out parameters (in C#) or ByRef parameters (in Visual Basic).

  4. To pass multiple values to a method through a single parameter. For example, the Thread.Start(Object) method has a single parameter that lets you supply one value to the method that the thread executes at startup time. If you supply a Tuple<T1, T2, T3> object as the method argument, you can supply the thread’s startup routine with three items of data.

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