Question

I have the next C# code:

    Dictionary<string, int> d = new Dictionary<string, int>();
    d.Add("a", 3);
    d.Add("b", 1);
    d.Add("c", 0);
    d.Add("d", -1);
    d.Add("e", -9);

When searching the key “c” I want to get the position of this key, i.e. 2. If I look for the key “e”, I want to get 4. If the element is not found the relative position could be -1.

Added:
Unless you have a better idea, I want to populate a matrix with certain values in a row number indicated by the relative position of a dictionary element found. The same applies for the column but using a different dictionary. An example:

     n4   n2   n1   n3  n9  . . . 
a   4/4
b              2         8
c
d                  8/2
e         4/3
.
.
.

Where a,b,c,d,e,… are the keys of dictionay “d” and n4,n2,n3,n9 are the keys of a second dictionary.

How can I get this?

Answer 1

There’s no such thing as a “position” within a Dictionary<,> – it’s an unordered collection.

There are similar collections sorted by key – SortedList<,> and SortedDictionary<,>. Note that those are ordered by key rather than insertion time though. It’s not clear which you want.