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SortedList.Item Property

Gets and sets the value associated with a specific key in a SortedList object.

Namespace: System.Collections
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)

public virtual Object this [
	Object key
] { get; set; }
/** @property */
public Object get_Item (Object key)

/** @property */
public void set_Item (Object key, Object value)

Not applicable.



The key associated with the value to get or set.

Property Value

The value associated with the key parameter in the SortedList object, if key is found; otherwise, a null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic).

Exception typeCondition


key is a null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic).


The property is set and the SortedList object is read-only.


The property is set, key does not exist in the collection, and the SortedList has a fixed size.


There is not enough available memory to add the element to the SortedList.


The comparer throws an exception.

You can use the Item property to access a specific element in a collection by specifying the following syntax: myCollection[key].

You can also use this property to add new elements by setting the value of a key that does not exist in the SortedList object (for example, myCollection["myNonexistentKey"] = myValue). However, if the specified key already exists in the SortedList, setting the Item property overwrites the old value. In contrast, the Add method does not modify existing elements.

A key cannot be a null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic), but a value can be. To distinguish between a null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic) that is returned because the specified key is not found and a null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic) that is returned because the value of the specified key is a null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic), use the Contains method or the ContainsKey method to determine if the key exists in the list.

The elements of a SortedList are sorted by the keys either according to a specific IComparer implementation specified when the SortedList is created or according to the IComparable implementation provided by the keys themselves.

The C# language uses the this keyword to define the indexers instead of implementing the Keys property. Visual Basic implements Item as a default property, which provides the same indexing functionality.




.NET Framework

Supported in: 3.0, 2.0, 1.1, 1.0

.NET Compact Framework

Supported in: 2.0

XNA Framework

Supported in: 1.0

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