Empty arrays are not used often as arrays usually are about the presence data, not about the absence.
Here are two ways based on the int data type in C# (the original [WayBack] examples [WayBack] are using string, but since string itself is also a kind of array…):
Specify a size of zero:
int[] a = new int[0];
Specify an empty initialisation:
int[] a = new int[] { };
Though many people think arrays are a thing of the past, I think it is one of the first generic types and have their place. For one, enumerating over arrays using foreach is a lot faster in many environments than enumerating over other data types. Another thing is that the fixed nature of arrays can be very beneficial in setting constraints.
I’ve seen this question coming up a few times, and bumped into this at a client recently: the UAC dialog coming up when debugging a 32-bit executable.
This is caused (more details below) by Installer Detection Technology introduced in Windows Vista (with UAC) and tightened in more modern Windows versions.
The solution is to either:
not include Installer, Patch, Update, Upgrade, Setup, … in your EXE name
provide a correct manifest to your EXE (getting this right can be hard)
Had to investigate some Assembly Loading issues, so I wrote two batch files to enable and disable the .NET Fusion Log:
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It is all about handling values that are not Integers, Overflow values and Nulls. There are subtle differences, in the handling of the methods, and the exceptions they could throw: ArgumentNullException, FormatException and OverflowException.
During a recent code review, I bumped into a couple of C# constructors having boolean parameters, leading to the dreaded magic booleans code smell.
This reminded me of the infamous Avoiding Booleans post on Coding Horror, which now is almost 10 years old.
To celebrate, I will coin the Dutch phrase when marking these in a review:
Boolean parameters en literals zijn vrijwel altijd een zwaktebod. Een teken dat beter nagedacht moet worden over het doel van de code.
The Dutch word zwaktebod is used when bidding Bridge using the Acol system. It is the equivalent of a “weak takeout” response to a bid of 1 NT (notrump or no trump, in other languages sometimes sans atout).
The English translation is just about this:
Boolean parameters and literals virtually always are a sign of weakness. It indicates you need to give more thought to the goal of the code.
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 