Should i use a generic Dictionary or a Collection?

Hi. When i was using VB6 i was using collections.

Now, i tried to use the Dictionary in .net, as it is basically a strongly typed collection. When i used collections, everytime you added an object / key, it was given an index. I would for / next through the collection to get all of the objects.

How can i do this with a dictionary

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Should i use a generic Dictionary or a Collection?

gon10289

A List(Of T) can only be indexed with an integer, a Dictionary(Of K, V) can have any type (K) as the indexer. It really depends on your application which one you need. To get all the items in a collection, you can use For Each and iterate over the items (List) or the keys (Dictionary):

Dim c As New List(Of String)

c.AddRange(New String() {"Hello", "World", "foo", "bar"})

Console.WriteLine(c(2)) ' returns foo

For Each s As String In c

Console.WriteLine(s)

Dim d As New Dictionary(Of String, Integer)

d.Add("foo", 42)

Console.WriteLine(d("foo")) ' returns 42

For Each s As String In d.Keys

Console.WriteLine(d(s))

Should i use a generic Dictionary or a Collection?

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