LINQ query to return a Dictionary<string, string>

Scott Ivey picture Scott Ivey · Mar 9, 2009 · Viewed 169.6k times · Source

I have a collection of MyClass that I'd like to query using LINQ to get distinct values, and get back a Dictionary<string, string> as the result, but I can't figure out how I can do it any simpler than I'm doing below. What would some cleaner code be that I can use to get the Dictionary<string, string> as my result?

var desiredResults = new Dictionary<string, string>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);

var queryResults = (from MyClass mc in myClassCollection
                    orderby bp.SomePropToSortOn
                    select new KeyValuePair<string, string>(mc.KeyProp, mc.ValueProp)).Distinct();

foreach (var item in queryResults)
{
    desiredResults.Add(item.Key.ToString(), item.Value.ToString());
}

Answer

Mehrdad Afshari picture Mehrdad Afshari · Mar 9, 2009

Use the ToDictionary method directly.

var result = 
  // as Jon Skeet pointed out, OrderBy is useless here, I just leave it 
  // show how to use OrderBy in a LINQ query
  myClassCollection.OrderBy(mc => mc.SomePropToSortOn)
                   .ToDictionary(mc => mc.KeyProp.ToString(), 
                                 mc => mc.ValueProp.ToString(), 
                                 StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);