• Conversion to string
• Conversion to array
• Conversion to list

Property : dictionary.Count

Initialization

var dictionary = new Dictionary<int, string>{ {1, "One"}, {2, "Two"} }

// new dictionary initializer
var dictionary = new Dictionary<int, string>{
     [1] = "One",
     [2] = "Two"
}

O(1) operations

// add => might be O(n) too
dictionary.Add(key, value);

// get
string val = dictionary[key];
if (dictionary.TryGetValue(key, var out valForKey)) {
}

// contains key 
var containsKey = dictionary.ContainsKey(key);

// remove by key
dictionary.Remove(key);

// remove all
dictionary.Clear();

O(n) operations

// contains value
var containsValue = dictionary.ContainsValue(val);

// Iterate over keys 
foreach (var key in dictionary.Keys)
     Console.WriteLine(dictionary[key]);
 
// Iterate over values
foreach (var value in dictionary.Values)
     Console.WriteLine(value);
 
// Iterate over dictionary
foreach (var keyValuePair in dictionary)
{
     Console.WriteLine(keyValuePair.Key);
     Console.WriteLine(keyValuePair.Value);
}

Runtime Complexity of .NET Generic Collection

Conversion to string

dictionary to string

string str = string.Join(";", myDict.Select(kv => kv.Key + "=" + kv.Value).ToArray());

string to dictionary

var dict = text.Split(new[] {';'}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
               .Select(part => part.Split('='))
               .ToDictionary(split => split[0], split => split[1]);

Conversion to array

dictionary to array

var array = dict.Values.ToArray();
var array = dict.Keys.ToArray();

T[] array = new T[dict.Count];
dict.Values.CopyTo(array, 0); // starting from 0 index

// using LINQ - has overhead (calling Lambda each time)
var array = dict.Select(pair => pair.Value).ToArray();

array to dictionary

var dict = array.ToDictionary(key => key, value => value); // key == value == each item

// to avoid duplicate key, use index as key
var dictionary = array.Select((v, i) => new {Key = i, Value = v}).ToDictionary(o => o.Key, o => o.Value);

// to avoid duplicate key, use hashset
var hashset = new HashSet<string>(array);
var dict = hashset.ToDictionary(key => key, value => value);

Conversion to list

dictionary to list

var keyList = dictionary.Keys.ToList();
var valList = dictionary.Values.ToList();

// key value pair
List<KeyValuePair<string, int>> list = dictionary.ToList();

foreach (KeyValuePair<string, int> pair in list){
  Console.WriteLine(pair.Key);
  Console.WriteLine(pair.Value);
}

// when values are nested list
Dictionary<K, List<V>> dictionary = GetDictionary();
List<List<V>> nestedList = dictionary.Values;
List<V> list = nestedList.SelectMany(item => item).ToList();

list to dictionary

var dict = list.ToDictionary(x => x, x => x);

// to avoid duplicate key
var dict = list.Distinct().ToDictionary(x => x, x => x);
var dict = list.ToLookup(x => x);