Question

what I’m trying to do is have a project-wise static dictionary so I can access a single list from anywhere in my code.

Until now, I came up with this solution, a public static class with a public property:

public static class Common {     public static StringDictionary Domains     {         get         {             StringDictionary list = new StringDictionary();              list.Add('212', 'Location A');             list.Add('555', 'Location B');             list.Add('747', 'Location C');             list.Add('000', 'Location D');              return list;         }     } } 

That I use in this way (I use it to replace the content of a cell in a gridview):

if (Common.Domains.ContainsKey(e.Row.Cells[5].Text)) {     e.Row.Cells[5].Text = Common.Domains[e.Row.Cells[5].Text]; } else {     e.Row.Cells[5].Text = 'n/a'; } 

But I don’t know if this is an efficient solution, and/or if there are other (better) ways to do this… Can somebody give a hint?

Thanks in advance, Andrea.

Answer 1

You probably don’t want to re-create the list every time the property is accessed. Move the construction into the static constructor:

public static class Common {     private static StringDictionary _domains;     static Common()     {         _domains = new StringDictionary();         _domains.Add('212', 'Location A');         _domains.Add('555', 'Location B');         _domains.Add('747', 'Location C');         _domains.Add('000', 'Location D');     }     public static StringDictionary Domains     {         get         {             return _domains;         }     } } 

And you should be aware, that the dictionary returned is not read-only. So a client of this class could modify the collection (e.g. add/remove some entries).