One Key to multiple values dictionary in C#? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Instead of using a Tuple, which is a perfectly valid solution, i'd advise on creating your own class as the key and/or Value.

You might realize the tuple will become an hard to read code.

Answer 2

Use a tuple as a key.

var d = new Dictionary<Tuple<string,string,bool,int>,any-data-typs>();

Answer 3

A dictionary is a key-value pair, where the value is fetched depending on the key. The keys are all unique.

Now if you want a Dictionary with 1 keytype and multiple value types, you have a few options:

first is to use a Tuple

var dict = new Dictionary<KeyType, Tuple<string, string, bool, int>>()

The other is to use (with C# 4.0 and above):

var dict = new Dictionary<KeyType, dynamic>()

the System.Dynamic.ExpandoObject can have value of any type.

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public class Test {
   public static void Main(string[] args) {
        dynamic d1 = new System.Dynamic.ExpandoObject();
    var dict = new Dictionary<int, dynamic>();
        dict[1] = d1;
        dict[1].FooBar = "Aniket";
        Console.WriteLine(dict[1].FooBar);
        dict[1].FooBar = new {s1="Hello", s2="World", s3=10};
        Console.WriteLine(dict[1].FooBar.s1);
        Console.WriteLine(dict[1].FooBar.s3);
   }
}

Answer 4

Describe both the appropriate key fields and the appropriate value fields with classes. and use a dictionary of those types.

var dictionary = new Dictionary<TheKeyType, TheValuesType>();

Note: If you have multiple values acting as the key, you would define a class to encapsulate those values and provide proper overrides of GetHashCode and Equals so that the dictionary could recognize their equality.

Short of doing this, you can utilize tuples, but you want to limit this pattern, as tuples are non self-describing.

var dictionary = new Dictionary<Tuple<Key1Type, Key2Type, Etc>, Tuple<Value1Type, Value2Type, Etc>>();