How do you create a dynamic amount of objects? Design Pattern help

Question

Hey Stack Overflow'ers,

I'm stuck in a C# program I'm developing, and I think it's because I am taking the wrong approach.

You see, I have these settings in an XML file, which are read at runtime. For each setting, I want to create a new object that does stuff.

I think I can do that, but the problem is, how do I reference those objects?

For example:

  <person>
    <name>Jared</name>
    <age>28</age>
  </person>
  <person>
    <name>Nicole</name>
    <age>32</age>
  </person>

Normally, I'd just do something like:

Person Jared = new Person();

but I have no idea how many people there will be in the XML file. Then later if I want to set/get Jared's age, I would have no idea how to reference it.

Am I missing how to dynamically create objects using OOP?

-Josh

Answer 1

You need to create a List<Person> instance, which can store zero or more Person objects.

For example:

List<Person> people = new List<Person>();

people.Add(new Person(...));
people.Add(new Person(...));

Console.WriteLine(people[1].Age);

You can also add and read the list using for or foreach loops.

Answer 2

You'll want to put these into a collection, such as a List<T>:

List<Person> people = new List<Person>();

people.Add(new Person("Jared", 28));
people.Add(new Person("Nicole", 31));

For details, refer to the discussion for Collection Classes on MSDN.

Answer 3

A Dictionary<string,Person> may be appropriate for the situation. That way, when you want to reference a person, you could do so by making the person's name the key.