Question

How can I document the key usage in a Dictionary so that it shows in Visual studio when coding using that object?

I’m looking for something like:

/// <param name="SpecialName">That Special Name</param>
public Dictionary<string,string> bar;

So far the best attempt has been to write my own class:

public class SpecialNameDictionary : IDictionary<string, string>
{
    private Dictionary<string, string> data = new Dictionary<string, string>();

    /// <param name="specialName">That Special Name</param>
    public string this[string specialName]
    {
        get
        {
            return data[specialName];
        }
    }
}

But It adds a lot of code that doesn’t do anything. Additionally I must retype every Dictionary method to make it compile.

Is there a better way to achive the above?

Answer 1

You can define, dictionary like this:

public class SpecialNameDictionary : Dictionary<string, string>
{
    /// <param name="specialName">That Special Name</param>
    public new string this[string specialName]
    {
        get
        {
            return base[specialName];
        }
    }
}

Instead of deriving from IDictionary derive from Dictionary, and make new implementation of indexer.