Send an Unspecified Number of Parameters to a Method

Question

I have a program that at the moment is hard coded to send a number of parameters that the user inputs into a DBF file. I cannot leave the parameters empty (DBF just doesn't seem to allow it) so now I am simply putting in a blank which is not necessarily a problem.

This is the method so far;

    public bool SendToDBF(string name, string town, string pcode)
    {

        int id, querytype, personID;
        string whatfile, netname, whatProgram, blank;

        id = 1;
        whatfile = "Compns";
        querytype = 1;
        netname = Environment.UserName;
        personID = 8948;
        whatProgram = "Sales";
        blank = "";

        try
        {
            string constr = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["dbfString"].ConnectionString;
            using (var dbfCon = new OleDbConnection(constr))
            {
                dbfCon.Open();
                var dbfCmd = new OleDbCommand("INSERT INTO fromsql VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)", dbfCon);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.Clear();
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@fq_uniqid", id);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@fq_whfile", whatfile);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@fq_what", querytype);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@fq_whonm", netname);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@fq_whoid", personID);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@fq_whoprog", whatProgram);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param1", name);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param2", town);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param3", pcode);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param4", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param5", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param6", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param7", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param8", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param9", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param10", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param11", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param12", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param13", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@paraml1", blank);
                dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@paraml2", blank);

                dbfCmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
                return true;
            }
        }
        catch (OleDbException ex)
        {
            MessageBox.Show("Error Updating MySQL: " + ex);
            return false;
        }
    }

What I would like is that the amount of paramaters sent to DBF is decided on how many fields the user fills in for the company, for example if they fill in just the name, town and post code then SendToDBF will take 3 params as well as the predefined parameters such as ID, Whatfile and QueryType.

Is there a way that I can make SendToDBF take an unspecified number of parameters, and fill in the rest that are not in putted by the user with blanks?

Answer 1

If the type is always string you can use the params keyword in C#:

public static void TestParams(params string[] Params)
{
   foreach (string param in Params) 
    {
        Console.WriteLine(param);
    }
}

And then decide on the value name based on the index in Params

Example:

public static void TestParams(params string[] Params)
{
    // init dbf up here
    int maxParams = 12;
    for(int i = 1; i <= maxParams; i++) 
    {
        string paramName = "@param" + i;
        if(Params.Length >= i)
            dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue(paramName, Params[i - 1]); // array index is zero-based
        else
            dbfCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue(paramName, blank);
    }
}