[C#] How to Creating a Dictionary

The Dictionary class constructor takes a key data type and a value data type. Both types are generic so it can be any .NET data type.

The following The Dictionary class is a generic class and can store any data types. This class is defined in the code snippet creates a dictionary where both keys and values are string types.

Dictionary<string, string> EmployeeList = new Dictionary<string, string>();

The following code snippet adds items to the dictionary.

EmployeeList.Add("Mahesh Chand", "Programmer");
EmployeeList.Add("Praveen Kumar", "Project Manager");
EmployeeList.Add("Raj Kumar", "Architect");
EmployeeList.Add("Nipun Tomar", "Asst. Project Manager");
EmployeeList.Add("Dinesh Beniwal", "Manager");

The following code snippet creates a dictionary where the key type is string and value type is short integer.

Dictionary<string, Int16> AuthorList = new Dictionary<string, Int16>();

The following code snippet adds items to the dictionary.

AuthorList.Add("Mahesh Chand", 35);
AuthorList.Add("Mike Gold", 25);
AuthorList.Add("Praveen Kumar", 29);
AuthorList.Add("Raj Beniwal", 21);
AuthorList.Add("Dinesh Beniwal", 84);

We can also limit the size of a dictionary. The following code snippet creates a dictionary where the key type is string and value type is float and total number of items it can hold is 3.

Dictionary<string, float> PriceList = new Dictionary<string, float>(3);

The following code snippet adds items to the dictionary

PriceList.Add("Tea", 3.25f);
PriceList.Add("Juice", 2.76f);
PriceList.Add("Milk", 1.15f);