Whats the point of Tuple(Of T) [duplicate]

This question already has answers here: Closed 11 years ago.

Possible Duplicate:

What's the purpose of the Tuple(T1)/Singleton in .net?

Trying to mimic a Tuple as implemented in .Net 4 (For .Net 3) I ju开发者_Python百科st realized there is a Tuple(Of T)? This was quite a surprize!

Why would anyone do this

Tuple<string> result = new Tuple<string>("Data");

Instead of this

return "Data";

Isn't the whole point of a tuple that its a container for "loosely related data that isnt cohesive enough to make another class"? Am I missing something?

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There are a finite number of tuple-arities in the library, so to define an 8-tuple, you use the kind with 7-elements whose 'rest' argument is a one-tuple. See

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd383325.aspx

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This is a carry over from set theory that might not have much use for a software developer.

Tuples are simply ordered lists of elements. An N-tuple has n elements, and n can be one, which is called a singleton. You probably won't have much use for a 1-tuple in code, but I'm guessing the C# team put it in there for completeness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple#Etymology