Is there anyway to handy convert a dictionary to String?

Question

I found the default implemtation of ToString in the dictionary is not what I want. I would like to have {key=value, ***}.

Any handy way to get it?

Answer 1

You can loop through the Keys of the Dictionary and print them together with the value...

public string DictToString(Dictionary<string, string> dict)
{
    string toString = "";
    foreach (string key in dict.Keys)
    {
            toString += key + "=" + dict[key];
    }
    return toString;
}

Answer 2

I like ShekHar_Pro's approach to use the serializer. Only recommendation is to use json.net to serialize rather than the builtin JavaScriptSerializer since it's slower.

Answer 3

No handy way. You'll have to roll your own.

public static string ToPrettyString<TKey, TValue>(this IDictionary<TKey, TValue> dict)
{
    var str = new StringBuilder();
    str.Append("{");
    foreach (var pair in dict)
    {
        str.Append(String.Format(" {0}={1} ", pair.Key, pair.Value));
    }
    str.Append("}");
    return str.ToString();
}

Answer 4

I really like solutions with extension method above, but they are missing one little thing for future purpose - input parametres for separators, so:

    public static string ToPairString<TKey, TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dictionary, string pairSeparator, string keyValueSeparator = "=")
    {
        return string.Join(pairSeparator, dictionary.Select(pair => pair.Key + keyValueSeparator + pair.Value));
    }

Example of using:

string result = myDictionary.ToPairString(Environment.NewLine, " with value: ");

Answer 5

Try this extension method:

public static string ToDebugString<TKey, TValue> (this IDictionary<TKey, TValue> dictionary)
{
    return "{" + string.Join(",", dictionary.Select(kv => kv.Key + "=" + kv.Value).ToArray()) + "}";
}

Answer 6

If you want to use Linq, you could try something like this:

String.Format("{{{0}}}", String.Join(",", test.OrderBy(_kv => _kv.Key).Zip(test, (kv, sec) => String.Join("=", kv.Key, kv.Value))));

where "test" is your dictionary. Note that the first parameter to Zip() is just a placeholder since a null cannot be passed).

If the format is not important, try

String.Join(",", test.OrderBy(kv => kv.Key));

Which will give you something like

[key,value], [key,value],...