Initialize an array from XAML at runtime - silverlight

Question

I'd like to initialize an array from XAML in runtime, sort of like on Android.
I've tried doing it like this:
<ResourceDictionary
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:coll="clr-namespace:System.Collections;assembly=mscorlib">
<coll:ArrayList x:Key="Hello"></coll:ArrayList>
But when I try to load it from XAML like this
new ResourceDictionary { Source = new Uri("Commands/MPC/resources.xaml", UriKind.Relative) }
I get an exception. Not sure if I'm doing that right.

Answer 1

You can't use System.Collections.ArrayList in Silverlight, because Silverlight doesn't have it. See the MSDN documentation for the System.Collections namespace.
One thing you can do is create a subclass of System.Collections.Generic.List<T> that does nothing more than fill in a value for the generic type parameter:
using System.Collections.Generic;
public class MyList : List<object>
{
// Class has empty body
}
Then you can use it in XAML:
<ResourceDictionary
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:mycoll="clr-namespace:MyNamespace;assembly=MyAssembly">
<mycoll:MyList x:Key="Hello"></mycoll:MyList>
</ResourceDictionary>
If you know you're only going to be using this class with objects of type SomeType, you can subclass List<SomeType> instead of List<object>.