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How to sort a Dictionary<string, List<int>> by a certain element in values list?

I have a dictionary which holds strings as keys and Lists as values. Imagine you have Olympic Games where the keys are different countries and the values in each list are for example number of participants, number of sports, gold medals, silver medals, etc. So if I want to sort the countries by gold medals and say gold medals is the second entry in each list I would want something like this:
var countryRankings = new Dictionary<string, List<int>>();
countryRankings.Add(country, new List<int>() {numberOfParticipants, numberOfWins });
//some more country data follows
countryRankings.OrderByDescending(pairs => pairs.Value[1]);
The last bit is not rejected by VisualStudio but is not working as expected. The dictionary is not sorted.When I think about it it's better to create class country with different properties and then sort with Lambda in the way OrderBy(c => c.goldMedals) but is there a way to do this with nested inside a dictionary List ?

That's because the OrderByDescending extension method does not mutate (modify) the original object (countryRankings) but instead returns another object that, when enumerated, produces ordered references to elements in the original dictionary.
So, this should work:
var orderedRankings = countryRankings.OrderByDescending(pairs => pairs.Value[1]);
// now you can iterate over orderedRankings
foreach(var rankingPair in orderedRankings)
{
// do something with it..
}
And, yes it would be better to create a class as you suggested in the last part of the question but that doesn't change the answer.

The OrderByDescending method doesn't sort the dictionary, it returns a new collection that is sorted.
Assign the result to a variable. It can't be a dictionary though, as the items in a dictionary can't be reordered. You can use the ToList method to realise the result as an actual collection:
List<KeyValuePair<string, List<int>>> result =
countryRankings.OrderByDescending(pairs => pairs.Value[1]).ToList();
Using a class instead of a list of integers would be better, but it doesn't change what you need to do to get the sorted result, only what the expression to sort it looks like.

Make an existing Dictionary case insensitive .Net

I know how to make a new dictionary case insensitive with the code below:
var caseInsensitiveDictionary = new Dictionary<string, string>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
But I'm using WebApi which serializes JSON objects into a class we've created.
public class Notification : Common
{
public Notification();
[JsonProperty("substitutionStrings")]
public Dictionary<string, string> SubstitutionStrings { get; set; }
}
So besides rebuilding the dictionary after receiving the "Notification" object, is there a way to set this dictionary to case insensitive in the first place or after it's been created?
Thanks

So besides rebuilding the dictionary after receiving the "Notification" object, is there a way to set this dictionary to case insensitive in the first place or after it's been created?
No, it is impossible. You need to create a new dictionary.
Currently the dictionary has all of the keys in various different buckets; changing the comparer would mean that a bunch of keys would all suddenly be in the wrong buckets. You'd need to go through each key and re-compute where it needs to go and move it, which is basically the same amount of work as creating a new dictionary would be.

Whenever an item is added to a dictionary, the dictionary will compute its hash code and make note of it. Whenever a dictionary is asked to look up an item, the dictionary will compute the hash code on the item being sought and assume that any item in the dictionary which had returned a different hash code cannot possibly match it, and thus need not be examined.
In order for a dictionary to regard "FOO", "foo", and "Foo" as equal, the hash code function it uses must yield the same value for all of them. If a dictionary was built using a hash function which returns different values for "FOO", "foo", and "Foo", changing to a hash function which yielded the same value for all three strings would require that the dictionary re-evaluate the hash value of every item contained therein. Doing this would require almost as much work as building a new dictionary from scratch, and for that reason .NET does not support any means of changing the hash function associated with a dictionary other than copying all the items from the old dictionary to a new dictionary, abandoning the old one.
Note that one could design a SwitchablyCaseSensitiveComparator whose GetHashCode() method would always return a case-insensitive hash value, but whose Equals method could be switched between case-sensitive and non-case sensitive operation. If one were to implement such a thing, one could add items to a dictionary and then switch between case-sensitive and non-case-sensitive modes. The biggest problem with doing that would be that adding if the dictionary is in case-sensitive mode when two items are added which differ only in case, attempts to retrieve either of those items when the dictionary is in case-insensitive mode might not behave as expected. If populating a dictionary in case-insensitive mode and performing some look-ups in case-sensitive mode should be relatively safe, however.

Try changing your class definition to something like this
public class Notification : Common
{
public Notification()
{
this.substitutionStringsBackingStore =
new Dictionary<string,string>( StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase )
;
}
[JsonProperty("substitutionStrings")]
public Dictionary<string, string> SubstitutionStrings
{
get { return substitutionStringsBackingStore ; }
set { substitutionStringsBackingStore = value ; }
}
private Dictionary<string,string> substitutionStringsBackingStore ;
}

You do have to re-create the dictionary, but this can be done with extensions:
public static class extensions
{
public static Dictionary<string, T> MakeCI<T>(this Dictionary<string, T> dictionary)
{
return dictionary.ToDictionary(kvp => kvp.Key, kvp => kvp.Value, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
}
}
I've specified string type for the key as this is what we want to be CI, but the value can be any type.
You would use it like so:
myDict = myDict.MakeCI();

Dictionary ContainsKey does not seem to work with string[] key

I am trying to have a data structure with multiple string keys. To do this, I tried to create a Dictionary with string[] element. But the ContainsKey do no seem to work as I expect:
Dictionary<string[], int> aaa = new Dictionary<string[], int>();
int aaaCount = 0;
aaa.Add(new string[] { string1, string2 }, aaaCount++);
if (!aaa.ContainsKey(new string[] { string1, string2 }))
{
aaa.Add(new string[] { string1, string2 }, aaaCount++);
}
I see that there are two entries in aaa after the execution of the code above while I was expecting only one. Is this the expected behaviour? How can I ensure that there are no duplicate entries in the Dictionary?
Note: I tried the same with a list as well (List and the result is the same - the Contains method does not really work with string[])

If you want to use string[] as TKey, you should pass IEqualityComparer<string[]> to the constructor of Dictionary. Because Otherwise Dictionary uses standard comparison for TKey and in case of string[] it just compares references hence string[] is reference type. You have to implement IEqualityComparer yourself. It can be done in the following way:
(The implementation is quite naive, I provide it just as the starting point)
public class StringArrayComparer : IEqualityComparer<string[]>
{
public bool Equals(string[] left, string[] right)
{
if (ReferenceEquals(left, right))
{
return true;
}
if ((left == null) || (right == null))
{
return false;
}
return left.SequenceEqual(right);
}
public int GetHashCode(string[] obj)
{
return obj.Aggregate(17, (res, item) => unchecked(res * 23 + item.GetHashCode()));
}
}

You need to create an IEqualityComparer<string[]> and pass it to the dictionary's constructor.
This tells the dictionary how to compare keys.
By default, it compares them by reference.

Because an array is a reference type, i.e., you are checking reference (identity) equality, not equality based on the values within the array. When you create a new array with the same values the arrays themselves are still two distinct objects, so ContainsKey returns false.
Using an array as a Dictionary key is a bit... odd. What are you trying to map here? There is probably a better way to do it.

You may be better off, if your application supports it, to combine the string array into a single string.
We have numerous cases where two pieces of information uniquely identifies a record in a collection and in these cases, we join the two strings using a value that should never be in either string (i.e. Char(1)).
Since it is usually a class instance that is being added, we let the class specify the generation of the key so that the code adding to the collection only has to worry about checking a single property (i.e. CollectionKey).

Get index of a key/value pair in a C# dictionary based on the value

I would like to know if some property or method exists that gets the index of a specific value.
I found that dictionaries have the Contains() method which returns true if the value passed in exists, so this method almost implements what I need.
I know that I can loop through all the value pairs and check the condition, but I ask because maybe there's an optimized way of doing this.

Let's say you have a Dictionary called fooDictionary
fooDictionary.Values.ToList().IndexOf(someValue);
Values.ToList()
converts your dictionary values into a List of someValue objects.
IndexOf(someValue)
searches your new List looking for the someValue object in question
and returns the Index which would match the index of the Key/Value pair in the dictionary.
This method does not care about the dictionary keys, it simply returns the index of the value that you are looking for.
This does not however account for the issue that there may be several matching "someValue" objects.

There's no such concept of an "index" within a dictionary - it's fundamentally unordered. Of course when you iterate over it you'll get the items in some order, but that order isn't guaranteed and can change over time (particularly if you add or remove entries).
Obviously you can get the key from a KeyValuePair just by using the Key property, so that will let you use the indexer of the dictionary:
var pair = ...;
var value = dictionary[pair.Key];
Assert.AreEqual(value, pair.Value);
You haven't really said what you're trying to do. If you're trying to find some key which corresponds to a particular value, you could use:
var key = dictionary.Where(pair => pair.Value == desiredValue)
.Select(pair => pair.Key)
.FirstOrDefault();
key will be null if the entry doesn't exist.
This is assuming that the key type is a reference type... if it's a value type you'll need to do things slightly differently.
Of course, if you really want to look up values by key, you should consider using another dictionary which maps the other way round in addition to your existing dictionary.

Consider using System.Collections.Specialized.OrderedDictionary, though it is not generic, or implement your own (example).
OrderedDictionary does not support IndexOf, but it's easy to implement:
public static class OrderedDictionaryExtensions
{
public static int IndexOf(this OrderedDictionary dictionary, object value)
{
for(int i = 0; i < dictionary.Count; ++i)
{
if(dictionary[i] == value) return i;
}
return -1;
}
}

You can find index by key/values in dictionary
Dictionary<string, string> myDictionary = new Dictionary<string, string>();
myDictionary.Add("a", "x");
myDictionary.Add("b", "y");
int i = Array.IndexOf(myDictionary.Keys.ToArray(), "a");
int j = Array.IndexOf(myDictionary.Values.ToArray(), "y");

You can use LINQ to help you with this.
Dictionary<int, string> dict = new Dictionary<int, string>();
dict.Add(1, "hi");
dict.Add(2, "NotHi");
dict.Add(3, "Bah");
var item = (from d in dict
where d.Value == "hi"
select d.Key).FirstOrDefault();
Console.WriteLine(item); //Prints 1

If searching for a value, you will have to loop through all the data. But to minimize code involved, you can use LINQ.
Example:
Given Dictionary defined as following:
Dictionary<Int32, String> dict;
You can use following code :
// Search for all keys with given value
Int32[] keys = dict.Where(kvp => kvp.Value.Equals("SomeValue")).Select(kvp => kvp.Key).ToArray();
// Search for first key with given value
Int32 key = dict.First(kvp => kvp.Value.Equals("SomeValue")).Key;

In your comment to max's answer, you say that what you really wanted to get is the key in, and not the index of, the KeyValuePair that contains a certain value. You could edit your question to make it more clear.
It is worth pointing out (EricM has touched upon this in his answer) that a value might appear more than once in the dictionary, in which case one would have to think which key he would like to get: e.g. the first that comes up, the last, all of them?
If you are sure that each key has a unique value, you could have another dictionary, with the values from the first acting as keys and the previous keys acting as values. Otherwise, this second dictionary idea (suggested by Jon Skeet) will not work, as you would again have to think which of all the possible keys to use as value in the new dictionary.
If you were asking about the index, though, EricM's answer would be OK. Then you could get the KeyValuePair in question by using:
yourDictionary.ElementAt(theIndexYouFound);
provided that you do not add/remove things in yourDictionary.
PS: I know it's been almost 7 years now, but what the heck. I thought it best to formulate my answer as addressing the OP, but of course by now one can say it is an answer for just about anyone else but the OP. Fully aware of that, thank you.

no , there is nothing similar IndexOf for Dictionary although you can make use of ContainsKey method to get whether a key belongs to dictionary or not

What is the best collection type to easily lookup values with multiple, identical keys?

I have text documents like the following which contain single and multiple variables:
title:: Report #3
description:: This is the description.
note:: more information is available from marketing
note:: time limit for this project is 18 hours
todo:: expand the outline
todo:: work on the introduction
todo:: lookup footnotes
I need to iterate through the lines of this text document and fill a collection with these variables, currently I'm using a Dictionary:
public Dictionary<string, string> VariableNamesAndValues { get; set; }
But this doesn't work on multiple, identical keys such as "note" and "todo" in the above example since keys have to be unique in a Dictionary.
What is the best collection so that I can not only get single values like this:
string variableValue = "";
if (VariableNamesAndValues.TryGetValue("title", out variableValue))
return variableValue;
else
return "";
but that I can also get multiple values out like this:
//PSEUDO-CODE:
List<string> variableValues = new List<string>();
if (VariableNamesAndValues.TryGetValues("note", out variableValues))
return variableValues;
else
return null;

If your keys and values are strings then use a NameValueCollection. It supports multiple values for a given key.
It's not the most efficient collection in the world. Particularly because it's a non-generic class, uses a lot of virtual method calls, and the GetValues method will allocate arrays for its return values. But unless you require the best performing collection, this is certainly the most convenient collection that does what you ask.

You can make a Dictionary of key: string and value: List of String
Dictionary<string,List<string>>
EDIT 1 & 2:
I've thought of a better solution if you can use .NET 3.0 or higher.
Here's a LINQ example (I typed it without Visual Studio, so I hope it compiles ;)):
string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines("content.txt");
string[] separator = {":: "};
var splitOptions = StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries;
var items = from line in lines
let parts = line.Split(separator, splitOptions)
group parts by parts[0] into partGroups
select partGroups;
A short explanation of the example above:
Get all lines from the file in a String array
Define some Split options (to keep the example readable)
For each line in the lines array, split it on the ":: "
Group the results of the split on the first split part (e.g. title, description, note, ...)
Store the grouped items in the items variable
The result of the LINQ query is a IQueryable<IGrouping<string, IEnumberable<string>>>.
Each item in the result has a Key property containing the key of the line (title, description, note, ...).
Each item can be enumerated containing all of values.

You could use a Lookup<TKey, TElement> :
ILookup<string, string> lookup = lines.Select(line => line.Split(new string[] { ":: " })
.ToLookup(arr => arr[0], arr => arr[1]);
IEnumerable<string> notes = lookup["note"];
Note that this collection is read-only

You may use PowerCollections which is an open source project that has a MultiDictionary data structure which solves your problem.
Here is a sample of how to use it.
Note: Jon Skeet suggested it before in his answer to this question.

I'm not a c# expert, but I think Dictionary<string, List<string>>
or some kind of HashMap<string, List<string>> might work.
For example (Java pseudocode):
aKey aValue
aKey anotherValue
if(map.get(aKey) == null)
{
map.put(aKey, new ArrayList(){{add(aValue);}});
}
else
{
map.put(aKey, map.get(aKey).add(anotherValue));
}
or something similar.
(or, the shortest way:
map.put(aKey, map.get(aKey) != null ? map.get(aKey).add(value) : new ArrayList(){{add(value);}});

I have used Dictionary<string, HashSet<string>> for getting multiple values in the past. I would love to know if there is something better though.
Here is how you can emulate getting only one value.
public static bool TryGetValue(this Dictionary<string, HashSet<string>> map, string key, out string result)
{
var set = default(HashSet<string>);
if (map.TryGetValue(key, out set))
{
result = set.FirstOrDefault();
return result == default(string);
}
result = default(string);
return false;
}