Create a Dictionary in xaml?

Question

Pseudo example:

<Window>
  <Window.Tag>
    <x:Dictionary KeyType="{x:Type sys:String}" ValueType="{x:Type sys:Int32}">
        <sys:DictionaryEntry Entry="{sys:DictionaryEntry Key0, 000}"/>
        <sys:DictionaryEntry Key="key1" Value="111"/>
        <sys:DictionaryEntry>
          <sys:DictionaryEntry.Key>
            <sys:String>Key2<sys:String>
          </sys:DictionaryEntry.Key>          
          <sys:DictionaryEntry.Value>
            <sys:Int32>222</sys:Int32>            
          </sys:DictionaryEntry.Value>
        </sys:DictionaryEntry>
    </x:Dictionary />    
  </Window.Tag>
</Window>

Answer 1

You can't use the Dictionary<TKey, TValue> class directly in XAML, because there's no way to specify the generic type arguments (it will be possible in the next version of XAML, but it won't be supported in VS2010 WPF designer... at least not in the initial release).

However, you can declare a non-generic class that inherits from Dictionary<TKey, TValue>, and use it in XAML.

C#

public class MyDictionary : Dictionary<string, int> { }

XAML

<Window>
  <Window.Tag>
    <local:MyDictionary>
        <sys:Int32 x:Key="key0">0</sys:Int32>
        <sys:Int32 x:Key="key1">111</sys:Int32>
        <sys:Int32 x:Key="key2">222</sys:Int32>
    </local:MyDictionary />    
  </Window.Tag>
</Window>

Answer 2

If the keys and values are strings, you can use ListDictionary or HybridDictionary.

For example:

<Specialized:ListDictionary x:Key="MasterSlidesFileNames">
    <System:String x:Key="long">Ya long yes ni</System:String>
    <System:String x:Key="Sun">Waterfall</System:String>
    <System:String x:Key="lorem ipsum">hello wOrld</System:String>
</Specialized:ListDictionary>

Answer 3

In a related question i gave an answer which shows how one could create a generic dictionary in XAML without the XAML 2009 features using a custom Markup Extension instead.

Answer 4

Try something like this:

use this namespace: xmlns:collections="clr-namespace:System.Collections;assembly=mscorlib"

<ComboBox.ItemsSource>
    <collections:ArrayList>
        <collections:DictionaryEntry Key="0" Value="Standby"/>
        <collections:DictionaryEntry Key="1" Value="Maintenance"/>
        <collections:DictionaryEntry Key="2" Value="Available"/>
        <collections:DictionaryEntry Key="3" Value="Deselected"/>
        <collections:DictionaryEntry Key="4" Value="Input Error"/>
    </collections:ArrayList>
</ComboBox.ItemsSource>