What's so bad about ref parameters?

Question

I\'m faced with a situation that I think can only be solved by using a ref parameter. However, this will mean changing a method to always accept a ref parameter when I only

Answer 1

Can you add an overload? Have one signature without the ref parameter, and one with it.

Ref parameters can be useful, and I'm glad they exist in C#, but they shouldn't be used without thought. Often if a method is effectively returning two values, it would be better either to split the method into two parts, or encapsulate both values in a single type. Neither of these covers every case though - there are definitely times when ref is the best option.