Create Dictionary-style collection initializer on custom class [duplicate]

Answer 1

Why not use a class that inherits from Dictionary?

public class PairDictionary : Dictionary
{
}

private static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var temp = new PairDictionary
    {
        {0, "bob"},
        {1, "phil"},
        {2, "nick"}
    };

    Console.ReadKey();
}

You could also create your own collection (I suspect it is the case because you have the same Value1 for two items, so T1 doesn't act as a key in your example) that do not inherit from Dictionary.

If you want to use the syntactic sugar of collection initializer, you would have to provide a Add method that takes 2 arguments (T1 and T2 which are int and string in your case).

public void Add(int value1, string value2)
{
}

See Custom Collection Initializers