Question

I need to add an item after a specific key and item pair in a dictionary. Essentially the same behavior which the add member allows for in a collection:
(Collection.Add (item [,key] [,before] [,after])

Answer 1

There is no built-in method of the Dictionary object that allows this. Here is a quick way to roll your own. This will accomplish specifically what you are asking for but it should be simple to modify:

Function DictAdd(StartingDict As Dictionary, Key, Item, AfterKey) As Dictionary
Dim DictKey As Variant

    Set DictAdd = New Dictionary
    For Each DictKey In StartingDict
        DictAdd.Add DictKey, StartingDict(DictKey)
        If DictKey = AfterKey Then DictAdd.Add Key, Item
    Next DictKey
End Function

And to test it run the following procedure:

Sub TestDictAdd()
Dim MyDict As New Dictionary, DictKey As Variant

    MyDict.Add "A", "Alpha"
    MyDict.Add "C", "Charlie"

    Set MyDict = DictAdd(MyDict, "B", "Bravo", "A")
    For Each DictKey In MyDict
        Debug.Print DictKey, MyDict(DictKey)
    Next DictKey
End Sub

This is just to get you started. If I were doing this for myself I would probably create my own custom class to use and create a custom Add method instead of using a function. I’d also make the following improvements:

• add error handling
• make AfterKey an optional parameter
• add BeforeKey as an optional parameter