does an list of lists smell bad, what are my other options

Question

I need to assemble an list of lists, but the whole idea doesn't sound too pretty. It just sounds so cumbersome. is there some other pattern for holding a list of lists.

my first though is to use an arrayList of Arraylist.

c#, .net-2

more: then number of items to be stored is small but always changing.

NOTE: I was corrected on the use of ArrayLists on this Question:

What's wrong with using an ArrayList in .net-2.0

Answer 1

There's nothing wrong with List<List<T>> - LINQ's SelectMany can be your friend in that situation.

Answer 2

How about using objects created in custom classes?

For example, Customers can have multiple Addresses. Create a Customer object which has an Address property. Then, you can have a collection (array, ArrayList, etc) of Customers, and each Customer can have a collection of Addresses.

This fits many kinds of information, such as Products in Product Categories, Employees in Departments.

It's easier in coding to handle the hierarchical relationship this way.