Develop Reference

Sort Dictionary based on values in a list of integers

I'm having a problem sorting a dictionary based on the sum of 1s in lists of integers inside the same Dictionary. So first I want to count the 1s in each list and then sort the dictionary based on the result.
I've found some solutions in Stackoverflow but they don't answer my question.
Th dictionary looks like the following:
Dictionary<int, List<int>> myDic = new Dictionary<int, List<int>>();
List<int> myList = new List<int>();
myList = new List<int>();//Should appear third
myList.Add(0);
myList.Add(0);
myList.Add(1);
myDic.Add(0, myList);
myList = new List<int>();//Should appear second
myList.Add(1);
myList.Add(1);
myList.Add(0);
myDic.Add(1, myList);
myList = new List<int>();//Should appear first
myList.Add(1);
myList.Add(1);
myList.Add(1);
myDic.Add(2, myList);
I tried this code but it seems it doesn't do anything.
List<KeyValuePair<int, List<int>>> myList2 = myDic.ToList();
myList2.Sort((firstPair, nextPair) =>
{
return firstPair.Value.Where(i=>i==1).Sum().CompareTo(nextPair.Value.Where(x=>x==1).Sum());
});

You are sorting list items in ascending order. I.e. items with more 1s will go to the end of list. You should use descending order. Just compare nextPair to firstPair (or change sign of comparison result):
myList2.Sort((firstPair, nextPair) =>
{
return nextPair.Value.Where(i => i==1).Sum().CompareTo(
firstPair.Value.Where(x => x==1).Sum());
});
This approach has one problem - sum of 1s in value will be calculated each time two items are compared. Better use Enumerable.OrderByDescending. It's more simple to use, and it will compute comparison values (i.e. keys) only once. Thus Dictionary is a enumerable of KeyValuePairs, you can use OrderByDescending directly with dictionary:
var result = myDic.OrderByDescending(kvp => kvp.Value.Where(i => i == 1).Sum());

Your sort is backward, which is why you think it's not doing anything. Reverse the firstPair/nextPair values in your lambda and you'll get the result you expect.
Though, #Sergey Berezovskiy is correct, you could just use OrderBy, your example code could benefit from perhaps a different pattern overall.

class SummedKV
{
public KeyValuePair Kvp {get; set;}
public int Sum {get; set;}
}
var myList =
myDic.ToList()
.Select(kvp=> new SummedKV {Kvp = kvp, Sum = kvp.Value.Sum() });
myList.Sort(skv=>skv.Sum);

Maybe something simpler
myList2.OrderByDescending(x => x.Value.Sum());

Your code does do something. it creates a list of the items that used to be in the dictionary, sorted based on the number of 1 items contained in the list. The code that you have correctly creates this list and sorts it as your requirements say it should. (Note that using OrderByDescending would let you do the same thing more simply.)
It has no effect on the dictionary that you pulled the lists out of, of course. Dictionaries are unordered, so you can't "reorder" the items even if you wanted to. If it were some different type of ordered collection then it would be possible to change the order of it's items, but just creating a new structure and ordering that wouldn't do it; you'd need to use some sort of operation on the collection itself to change the order of the items.

How to compare the values in a Dictionary using Linq

I have a function that returns a Dictionary. Key = Players, Value = Score.
Now I want to compare the scores and create a new Dictionary with the new rearanged list where the top score is on top.
Whenever I use GroupBy, it creates automatically Dictionary
so if I do something like this
Dictionary<string, int> player = playersRank.getRoundRank ().GroupBy (v => v.Value).Select(k => k.Key);
I get a Dictionary<int, <string,int>>
How can I order them by value but get Dictionary in return?

Your result collection can not be a dictionary because a dictionary is not a ordered collection. You have some options, for example you could use a List of KeyValuePair
List<KeyValuePair<string, int>> sortedScores;
sortedScores = playersRank.getRoundRank().OrderByDescending(v => v.Value).ToList();
You could use many other types too (or even create your own class), it all depends on how you plan on using this list of sorted scores after you create it. If you update your question with more details we may be able to give you better answers on what type of collection you should use.

Quick mass-updating a Dictionary

I have a Dictionary<int, int> and would like to update certain elements all at once based on their current values, e.g. changing all elements with value 10 to having value 14 or something.
I imagined this would be easy with some LINQ/lambda stuff but it doesn't appear to be as simple as I thought. My current approach is this:
List<KeyValuePair<int, int>> kvps = dictionary.Where(d => d.Value == oldValue).ToList();
foreach (KeyValuePair<int, int> kvp in kvps)
{
dictionary[KeyValuePair.Key] = newValue;
}
The problem is that dictionary is pretty big (hundreds of thousands of elements) and I'm running this code in a loop thousands of times, so it's incredibly slow. There must be a better way...

This might be the wrong data structure. You are attempting to look up dictionary entries based on their values which is the reverse of the usual pattern. Maybe you could store Sets of keys that currently map to certain values. Then you could quickly move these sets around instead of updating each entry separately.

I would consider writing your own collection type to achieve this whereby keys with the same value actually share the same value instance such that changing it in one place changes it for all keys.
Something like the following (obviously, lots of code omitted here - just for illustrative purposes):
public class SharedValueDictionary : IDictionary<int, int>
{
private List<MyValueObject> values;
private Dictionary<int, MyValueObject> keys;
// Now, when you add a new key/value pair, you actually
// look in the values collection to see if that value already
// exists. If it does, you add an entry to keys that points to that existing object
// otherwise you create a new MyValueObject to wrap the value and add entries to
// both collections.
}
This scenario would require multiple versions of Add and Remove to allow for changing all keys with the same value, changing only one key of a set to be a new value, removing all keys with the same value and removing just one key from a value set. It shouldn't be difficult to code for these scenarios as and when needed.

You need to generate a new dictionary:
d = d.ToDictionary(w => w.Key, w => w.Value == 10 ? 14 : w.Value)

I think the thing that everybody must be missing is that it is exceeeeedingly trivial:
List<int> keys = dictionary.Keys.Where(d => d == oldValue);
You are NOT looking up keys by value (as has been offered by others).
Instead, keys.SingleOrDefault() will now by definition return the single key that equals oldValue if it exists in the dictionary. So the whole code should simplify to
if (dictionary.ContainsKey(oldValue))
dictionary[key] = newValue;
That is quick. Now I'm a little concerned that this might indeed not be what the OP intended, but it is what he had written. So if the existing code does what he needs, he will now have a highly performant version of the same :)

After the edit, this seems an immediate improvement:
foreach (var kvp in dictionary.Where(d => d.Value == oldValue))
{
kvp.Value = newValue;
}
I'm pretty sure you can update the kvp directly, as long as the key isn't changed

The order of elements in Dictionary

My question is about enumerating Dictionary elements
// Dictionary definition
private Dictionary<string, string> _Dictionary = new Dictionary<string, string>();
// add values using add
_Dictionary.Add("orange", "1");
_Dictionary.Add("apple", "4");
_Dictionary.Add("cucumber", "6");
// add values using []
_Dictionary["banana"] = 7;
_Dictionary["pineapple"] = 7;
// Now lets see how elements are returned by IEnumerator
foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> kvp in _Dictionary)
{
Trace.Write(String.Format("{0}={1}", kvp.Key, kvp.Value));
}
In what order will be the elements enumerated? Can I force the order to be alphabetical?

The order of elements in a dictionary is non-deterministic. The notion of order simply is not defined for hashtables. So don't rely on enumerating in the same order as elements were added to the dictionary. That's not guaranteed.
Quote from the doc:
For purposes of enumeration, each item in the dictionary is treated as a KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue> structure representing a value and its key. The order in which the items are returned is undefined.

You can always use SortedDictionary for that. Note that the dictionary is ordered by Key, by default, unless a comparer has been specified.
I'm skeptic regarding the use of OrderedDictionary for what you want since documentation says that:
The elements of an OrderedDictionary are not sorted by the key, unlike
the elements of a SortedDictionary class.

If you want the elements ordered, use a SortedDictionary. An ordinary hastable/dictionary is ordered only in some sense of the storage layout.

The items will be returned in the order that they happen to be stored physically in the dictionary, which depends on the hash code and the order the items were added. Thus the order will seem random, and as implementations change, you should never depend on the order staying the same.
You can order the items when enumerating them:
foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> kvp in _Dictionary.OrderBy(k => k.Value)) {
...
}
In framework 2.0 you would first have to put the items in a list in order to sort them:
List<KeyValuePair<string, string>> items = new List<KeyValuePair<string, string>>(_Dictionary);
items.Sort(delegate(KeyValuePair<string, string> x, KeyValuePair<string, string> y) { return x.Value.CompareTo(y.Value); });
foreach (KeyValuePair<string,string> kvp in items) {
...
}

For an OrderedDictionary:
var _OrderedDictionary = new System.Collections.Specialized.OrderedDictionary();
_OrderedDictionary.Add("testKey1", "testValue1");
_OrderedDictionary.Add("testKey2", "testValue2");
_OrderedDictionary.Add("testKey3", "testValue3");
var k = _OrderedDictionary.Keys.GetEnumerator();
var v = _OrderedDictionary.Values.GetEnumerator();
while (k.MoveNext() && v.MoveNext()) {
var key = k.Current; var value = v.Current;
}
Items are returned in the order that they are added.

Associative arrays (aka, hash tables) are unordered, which means that the elements can be ordered in any way imaginable.
HOWEVER, you could fetch the array keys (only the keys), order that alphabetically (via a sort function) and then work on that.
I cannot give you a C# sample because I don't know the language, but this should be enough for you to go on yourself.

C# - Removing Items from Dictionary in while loop

I have this and all seems to work fine but not sure why and if its valid.
Dictionary<string, List<string>> test = new Dictionary<string, List<string>>();
while (test.Count > 0)
{
var obj = test.Last();
MyMethod(obj);
test.Remove(obj.Key);
}
Update: Thanks for the answers, I have updated my code to explain why I don't do Dictionary.Clear();

I don't understand why you are trying to process all Dictonary entries in reverse order - but your code is OK.
It might be a bit faster to get a list of all Keys and process the entries by key instead of counting again and again...
E.G.:
var keys = test.Keys.OrderByDescending(o => o).ToList();
foreach (var key in keys)
{
var obj = test[key];
MyMethod(obj);
test.Remove(key);
}
Dictonarys are fast when they are accessed by their key value. Last() is slower and counting is not necessary - you can get a list of all (unique) keys.

There is nothing wrong with mutating a collection type in a while loop in this manner. Where you get into trouble is when you mutate a collection during a foreach block. Or more generally use a IEnumerator<T> after the underlying collection is mutated.
Although in this sample it would be a lot simpler to just call test.Clear() :)

That works, fine, since you're not iterating over the dictionary while removing items. Each time you check test.Count, it's like it's checking it from scratch.
That being said, the above code could be written much simpler and more effectively:
test.Clear();

It works because Count will be updated every time you remove an object. So say count is 3, test.Remove will decriment the count to 2, and so on, until the count is 0, then you will break out of the loop

Yes, this should be valid, but why not just call Dictionary.Clear()?

All you're doing is taking the last item in the collection and removing it until there are no more items left in the Dictionary.
Nothing out of the ordinary and there's no reason it shouldn't work (as long as emptying the collection is what you want to do).

So, you're just trying to clear the Dictionary, correct? Couldn't you just do the following?
Dictionary<string, List<string>> test = new Dictionary<string, List<string>>();
test.Clear();

This seems like it will work, but it looks extremely expensive. This would be a problem if you were iterating over it with a foreach loop (you can't edit collections while your iterating).
Dictionary.Clear() should do the trick (but you probably already knew that).

Despite your update, you can probably still use clear...
foreach(var item in test) {
MyMethod(item);
}
test.Clear()
Your call to .Last() is going to be extremely inefficient on a large dictionary, and won't guarantee any particular ordering of the processing regardless (the Dictionary is an unordered collection)

I used this code to remove items conditionally.
var dict = new Dictionary<String, float>
var keys = new String[dict.Count];
dict.Keys.CopyTo(keys, 0);
foreach (var key in keys) {
var v = dict[key];
if (condition) {
dict.Remove(key);
}