Question

I have the following City class. Each city object contains a dictionary which keys are language tags (let’s say: “EN”, “DE”, “FR”…) and which values are the city names in the corresponding languages (ex: Rome / Rom etc.).

public class City:
{
  private IDictionary<string, string> localizedNames = new Dictionary<string, string>(0);
  public virtual IDictionary<string, string> Names
  {
    get { return localizedNames ; }
    set { localizedNames = value; }
  }
}

Most of the cities have the same names whatever the language so the City constructor does actually creates the English mapping:

  public City(string cityName)
  {
    this.LocalizedNames.Add("EN", cityName);
  }

Here comes the question: is there a way to add the other values via inline initialization?

I tried different variations of the following without semantic success (does not compile):

AllCities.Add(new City("Rome") { Names["DE"] = "Rom" };

I also tried creating a new Dictionary, but this obviously overwrites the “EN” parameter:

AllCities.Add(new City("Rome") { Names = new Dictionary<string, string>() { { "DE", "Rom" } } };

Anybody know if this is possible?

Answer 1

AllCities.Add(new City("Rome") { Names = { { "DE", "Rom" }, { "...", "..." } } });

This is using initializer syntax to invoke the .Add method.