I would go so far as to say SortList shouldn't even have integer methods if you are going to use keys for indexing. The parrellel contexts can be... problematic.

You couldn't have an int indexer, because someone might want to use integers as keys. Wouldnt adding a "ValueAt(int i)" method just be pollution?

Maybe not an indexer, but why not a GetAt(int) method? I don't have VS fired up right now, so I don't know what methods are or aren't there, but having one seems reasonable.

Anyway, what really want to know is why there's no pre-canned method for copying the output of one stream to the input of another stream. It's 2008 for God's sake. Let's get a InputStream.CopyTo(OutpuStream) method already.

I was pretty sure that the non-generic SortedList did have a method which retrieves the value at a specific index (I used it a few days ago).

So, I checked it right now, and indeed:

The non-generic sortedList has a method 'GetByIndex', whereas the generic SortedList indeed doesn't have this functionality.

Why would they (MS) have discarded it ?

If there was actually an indexer that took an int for the index it should return a KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue> rather than a TValue, so that wouldn't really solve the problem any more elegantly than using the values collection. I guess the solution would be two methods, GetValueAt(int index) and GetKeyAt(int index) but I'm not sure it adds anything but pollution. I believe that the "law" of demeter is something that you should take a very pragmatic approach to rather than regarding it as a law.

My problem with "SortedList" is that the "list" part is an implementation detail for what is mostly a dictionary in terms of API. I would have preferred them to name it "ListDictionary" with "SortedDictionary" called "TreeDictionary". (Either of those could be prefixed with "Sorted" if desired.)

I'm annoyed that SortedList doesn't implement an interface that describes it's special abilities. I'm thinking something along the lines of:

public interface ISortedList<TKey, TValue>

: IDictionary<TKey, TValue>, IList<TValue>

{

IList<TKey> Keys { get; }

}

The IList<> interface would act in a readonly fashion, throwing NotSupportedException. Any weirdness introduced by the possibility of a SortedList whose keys are ints could be solved as follows:

public class SortedList<TKey, TValue>

: ISortedList<TKey, TValue>

{

....

public TValue this[TKey key]

{

    get { ... }

    set { ... }

}


TValue IList<TValue>.this[int index]

{

    get { ... }

    set { ... }

}

....

}

Having SortedList implement an interface like this would give me a lot more control over some of the NHibernate user types I create without having to do hackish things in my domain objects like accessing PersistentGenericMap.Entries().

Also, add the comparer to the interface:

public interface ISortedList<TKey, TValue>

IDictionary<TKey, TValue>, IList<TValue>

{

IList<TKey> Keys { get; }

IComparer<TKey> Comparer { get; }

}