StringDictionary vs Dictionary<>

[Peter K]

Hi

are there any benefits in using StringDictionary over Dictionary<string,
string> ?

It appears they achieve the same thing... (I could be wrong of course).


thanks,
Peter

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

are there any benefits in using StringDictionary over Dictionary<string,
string> ?

It appears they achieve the same thing... (I could be wrong of course).

The only benefit would be that you could compile your code in .NET
1.1, which didn't have generics (and thus didn't have
Dictionary<TKey,TValue>).

Jon

 

[Mark Rae]

are there any benefits in using StringDictionary over Dictionary<string,
string> ?

Not in my opinion - in fact...

It appears they achieve the same thing... (I could be wrong of course).

....you need to be *very* careful with StringDictionary:
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1605992&SiteID=1

If you're running v2, I would advise you not use StringDictionary at all...

 

[Christof Nordiek]

Hi

are there any benefits in using StringDictionary over Dictionary<string,
string> ?

StringDictionary compares the keys always case insensitive by converting any
string to lower case before use.
This may be disirable or not.

Christof

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

StringDictionary compares the keys always case insensitive by converting any
string to lower case before use.
This may be disirable or not.

One alternative for Dictionary<> to achieve the case insensitivity but
preserving the case of the keys themselves is to specify the
IEqualityComparer to use.

The MSDN docs for Dictionary<TKey,TValue>(IEqualityComparer<TKey>) has
this has an example.

Jon