Array or arrayList or structure in an array??

[jameajoness]

I am a second year computer forensics student and am working on a project to do some penetration testing in a sealed forensics LAb within the University LAN... After gathering the Machine names on the (sealed) LAn i am then getting the ip addresses, MAc address and Macine User name of each machine on the LAn..These details will need to be accessed seperately for use in the security testing and i am unsure how best to store the active data (though eventually in a database) Am i best to create a Multidimensinal arrayList or array(bearing in mind that all the data is convereted to "String" (arrays can only store one data type??) The data found on the live network is allways changing making an array a difficult choice? I have read some tutorials mentioning making a structure with the data and storing this in an arraylist but i dont know whether this will make accessing the individual data items (ip,MAc,HostName etc) a difficult procedure? If there is another more logical resolution i a would like to hear as my vb.net is not the most polished and of course there is allways the memory allocation to take into account etc etc..I am using vb.net 2008..thx

 

[jmcilhinney]

Arrays are fixed-length so, if you need to add and remove items, use a collection rather than an array. The ArrayList class should not be used from .NET 2.0 onwards. If you need a simple "dynamic array" then use the generic List(Of T) class. Define a type that has a property for each value in a record and create a List of that type. Create instances of that type and add them to the List.