Question

I have the following code :

using System.Collections.Generic;


public class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {

        var items = new List<KeyValuePair<int, User>>
                        {
                            new KeyValuePair<int, User>(1, new User {FirstName = "Name1"}),
                            new KeyValuePair<int, User>(1, new User {FirstName = "Name2"}),
                            new KeyValuePair<int, User>(2, new User {FirstName = "Name3"}),
                            new KeyValuePair<int, User>(2, new User {FirstName = "Name4"})
                        };

    }
}
public class User
{
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
}

Above as you can see there are multiple users for same key . Now I want to group them and convert the list object to dictionary in which the Key will be the same(1,2 as shown above) but the value will be the collection.Like this:

 var outputNeed = new Dictionary<int, Collection<User>>();
        //Output:
        //1,Collection<User>
        //2,Collection<User>

i.e they are grouped now.

How can I achieve that ?

Answer 1

I would suggest you use a Lookup<TKey, TElement> instead. This data-structure is specifically intended for use as a map from keys to collections of values.

//uses Enumerable.ToLookup: the Id is the key, and the User object the value
var outputNeeded = items.ToLookup(kvp => kvp.Key, kvp => kvp.Value);

Of course, if you do need the dictionary (to allow for mutability perhaps), you can do something like:

var outputNeeded = new Dictionary<int, Collection<User>>();

foreach(var kvp in list)
{
   Collection<User> userBucketForId;

   if(!outputNeeded.TryGetValue(kvp.Key, out userBucketForId)) 
   {
       // bucket doesn't exist, create a new bucket for the Id, containing the user
       outputNeeded.Add(kvp.Key, new Collection<User> { kvp.Value });
   }
   else 
   {   // bucket already exists, append user to it.
       userBucketForId.Add(kvp.Value);
   }
}

On another note, theCollection<T>class is not all that useful unless you intend to subclass it. Are you sure you don’t just need aList<User>?