Indexer in C#

An indexer allows an object to be indexed such as an array. When you define an indexer for a class, this class behaves similar to a virtual array. You can then access the instance of this class using the array access operator ([ ]).

In other words it simplifies the way we access the collection.

using System;
namespace IndexerApplication
{
   class IndexedNames
   {
      private string[] namelist = new string[size];
      static public int size = 10;
      public IndexedNames()
      {
         for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
         namelist[i] = "N. A.";
      }
      
      public string this[int index]
      {
         get
         {
            string tmp;
         
            if( index >= 0 && index <= size-1 )
            {
               tmp = namelist[index];
            }
            else
            {
               tmp = "";
            }
            
            return ( tmp );
         }
         set
         {
            if( index >= 0 && index <= size-1 )
            {
               namelist[index] = value;
            }
         }
      }
      
      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
         IndexedNames names = new IndexedNames();
         names[0] = "Zara";
         names[1] = "Riz";
         names[2] = "Nuha";
         names[3] = "Asif";
         names[4] = "Davinder";
         names[5] = "Sunil";
         names[6] = "Rubic";
         for ( int i = 0; i < IndexedNames.size; i++ )
         {
            Console.WriteLine(names[i]);
         }
         
         Console.ReadKey();
      }
   }
}

Overloaded Indexer

Indexers can be overloaded. Indexers can also be declared with multiple parameters and each parameter may be a different type. It is not necessary that the indexes have to be integers. C# allows indexes to be of other types, for example, a string.

using System;
namespace IndexerApplication
{
   class IndexedNames
   {
      private string[] namelist = new string[size];
      static public int size = 10;
      public IndexedNames()
      {
         for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
         {
            namelist[i] = "N. A.";
         }
      }
      
      public string this[int index]
      {
         get
         {
            string tmp;
            
            if( index >= 0 && index <= size-1 )
            {
               tmp = namelist[index];
            }
            else
            {
               tmp = "";
            }
            
            return ( tmp );
         }
         set
         {
            if( index >= 0 && index <= size-1 )
            {
               namelist[index] = value;
            }
         }
      }
      public int this[string name]
      {
         get
         {
            int index = 0;
            while(index < size)
            {
               if (namelist[index] == name)
               {
                return index;
               }
               index++;
            }
            return index;
         }

      }

      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
         IndexedNames names = new IndexedNames();
         names[0] = "Zara";
         names[1] = "Riz";
         names[2] = "Nuha";
         names[3] = "Asif";
         names[4] = "Davinder";
         names[5] = "Sunil";
         names[6] = "Rubic";
         
         //using the first indexer with int parameter
         for (int i = 0; i < IndexedNames.size; i++)
         {
            Console.WriteLine(names[i]);
         }
         
         //using the second indexer with the string parameter
         Console.WriteLine(names["Nuha"]);
         Console.ReadKey();
      }
   }
}