Question

I have a dictionary defined as:

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

I want to add a key/value to the dictionary based on what language the user has selected, which in my case is found with:

Request.Cookies["language"].Value == "ja-JP" //if true, Japanese, if false, English

I could just do if/elses, but I’m curious if there is some way to make this work:

typeLookup.Add((Request.Cookies["language"].Value == "ja-JP") ? "6","中間" : "6","Q2");

As it’s a Dictionary, two strings need to be specified. This doesn’t work, giving me “Syntax error, ‘:’ expected”. Is this a lost cause, or is there something I need to change/add to make this idea work?

Answer 1

Since both sides of the conditional use the same key, you can cheat:

typeLookup.Add("6", (Request.Cookies["language"].Value == "ja-JP") ? "中間":"Q2");

In general case, however, you would end up with a considerably uglier, repetitive, statement:

typeLookup.Add(
    (Request.Cookies["language"].Value == "ja-JP") ? "6" : "7"
,   (Request.Cookies["language"].Value == "ja-JP") ? "中間" : "Q2"
);