What is the best way to return two lists in C#?

Question

I am almost embarrassed to ask this question, but as a long time C programmer I feel that perhaps I am not aware of the best way to do this in C#.

I have a member fu

Answer 1

You have a few options:

use a Pair if the lists are meaningless in order:

 public Pair,List ReturnTwoLists()
 {
        return new Pair(new List

You can use out or ref parameters, as you mentioned. This is a good option if one list is more meaningful than the other.

You could use a dictionary if the client will know the keys, or wants to do the work to look them up:

 public Dictionary ReturnTwoLists()
 {
        Dictionary> d = new Dictionary>();
        d.Add("FirstList",new List());
        d.Add("SecondList",new List());
        return new Dictionary()(new List

Or, the most "correct" solution in my eyes, for completeness and consistency, would be to create a simple data container class to hold the two lists. This provides a consumer with strongly-typed, good statically compiled (read: intellisense-enabled) return values to work with. The class can be nested right next to the method.