CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#arraysglobal-variablesconstants
Shadow
Shadow

Reputation: 4006

What's the proper way to create a global array constant?

I have done some searching, but haven't found much. At the moment I am using:

class GlobalArrays
{
    public static string[] words = { "Easy", "Medium", "Hard" };
    public static Color[] backColors = { Color.LightGreen, Color.Orange, Color.Red };
}

Which works well, but I don't know if it is the correct way to do it. I've seen global variables done like this:

static class GlobalVars
{
    const string SOMETHING = "LOL";
}

Which is supposedly the Microsoft approved way of declaring namespace level constants, but when I tried that with arrays, it threw an error, saying they could only be of type string.

static class GlobalArrays
{
    public const string[] words = { "Easy", "Medium", "Hard" };
    public const Color[] backColors = { Color.LightGreen, Color.Orange, Color.Red };
}

The above code won't compile, and says they can only be initialized with null, because they are of a type that is not string.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1670

Answers (1)

danielnixon
danielnixon

Reputation: 4268

According to the compiler:

A const field of a reference type other than string can only be initialized with null.

I think this is about as close as you're going to get:

private static readonly string[] words = { "Easy", "Medium", "Hard" };
public static IReadOnlyCollection<string> Words
{
    get
    {
        return Array.AsReadOnly(words);
    }
}

Upvotes: 3

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