Declare a Dictionary inside a static class

Question

How to declare a static dictionary object inside a static class? I tried

public static class ErrorCode
{
    public const IDictionary<string, string> ErrorCodeDic = new Dictionary<string, string>()
    {
        { "1", "User name or password problem" }     
    };
}

But the compiler complains that "A const field of a reference type other than string can only be initialized with null".

Answer 1

If you want to declare the dictionary once and never change it then declare it as readonly:

private static readonly Dictionary<string, string> ErrorCodes
    = new Dictionary<string, string>
{
    { "1", "Error One" },
    { "2", "Error Two" }
};

If you want to dictionary items to be readonly (not just the reference but also the items in the collection) then you will have to create a readonly dictionary class that implements IDictionary.

Check out ReadOnlyCollection for reference.

BTW const can only be used when declaring scalar values inline.