Creating a constant Dictionary in C#

Question

What is the most efficient way to create a constant (never changes at runtime) mapping of strings to ints?

I\'ve tried us

Answer 1

There does not seem to be any standard immutable interface for dictionaries, so creating a wrapper seems like the only reasonable option, unfortunately.

Edit: Marc Gravell found the ILookup that I missed - that will allow you to at least avoid creating a new wrapper, although you still need to transform the Dictionary with .ToLookup().

If this is a need constrained to a specific scenario, you might be better off with a more business-logic-oriented interface:

interface IActiveUserCountProvider
{
    int GetMaxForServer(string serverName);
}

Answer 2

Just another idea since I am binding to a winforms combobox:

public enum DateRange {
    [Display(Name = "None")]
    None = 0,
    [Display(Name = "Today")]
    Today = 1,
    [Display(Name = "Tomorrow")]
    Tomorrow = 2,
    [Display(Name = "Yesterday")]
    Yesterday = 3,
    [Display(Name = "Last 7 Days")]
    LastSeven = 4,
    [Display(Name = "Custom")]
    Custom = 99
    };

int something = (int)DateRange.None;

To get the int value from the display name from:

public static class EnumHelper<T>
{
    public static T GetValueFromName(string name)
    {
        var type = typeof(T);
        if (!type.IsEnum) throw new InvalidOperationException();

        foreach (var field in type.GetFields())
        {
            var attribute = Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(field,
                typeof(DisplayAttribute)) as DisplayAttribute;
            if (attribute != null)
            {
                if (attribute.Name == name)
                {
                    return (T)field.GetValue(null);
                }
            }
            else
            {
                if (field.Name == name)
                    return (T)field.GetValue(null);
            }
        }

        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("name");
    }
}

usage:

var z = (int)EnumHelper<DateRange>.GetValueFromName("Last 7 Days");

Answer 3

enum Constants
{
    Abc = 1,
    Def = 2,
    Ghi = 3
}

...

int i = (int)Enum.Parse(typeof(Constants), "Def");

Answer 4

If using 4.5+ Framework I would use ReadOnlyDictionary (also ReadOnly Collection for lists) to do readonly mappings/constants. It's implemented in the following way.

static class SomeClass
{
    static readonly ReadOnlyDictionary<string,int> SOME_MAPPING 
        = new ReadOnlyDictionary<string,int>(
            new Dictionary<string,int>()
            {
                { "One", 1 },
                { "Two", 2 }
            }
        )
}