SortedSet and SortedList fails with different enums - c#

The whole story; I have some KeyValuePairs that I need to store in a session and my primary goal is to keep it small. Therefore I don't have the option of using many different collection. While the key is a different enum value of of a different enum type the value is always just a enum value of the same enum type. I have chosen a HashTable for this approach which content look like this (just many more):
// The Key-Value-Pairs
{ EnumTypA.ValueA1, MyEnum.ValueA },
{ EnumTypB.ValueB1, MyEnum.ValueB },
{ EnumTypC.ValueC1, MyEnum.ValueA },
{ EnumTypA.ValueA2, MyEnum.ValueC },
{ EnumTypB.ValueB1, MyEnum.ValueC }
At most I am running contains on that HashTable but for sure I also need to fetch the value at some point and I need to loop through all elements. That all works fine but now I have a new requirement to keep the order I have added them to the HashTable -> BANG
A HashTable is a map and that is not possible!
Now I thought about using a SortedList<object, MyEnum> or to go with more Data but slightly faster lookups and use a SortedSet<object> in addition to the HashTable.
Content below has been edited
The SortedList is implemented as
SortedList<Enum, MyEnum> mySortedList = new SortedList<Enum, MyEnum>();
the SortedSet is implemented as
SortedSet<Enum> mySortedSet = new SortedSet<Enum>();
The described Key - Value - Pairs are added to the sorted list with
void AddPair(Enum key, MyEnum value)
{
mySortedList.Add(key, value);
}
And for the SortedSett like this
void AddPair(Enum key)
{
mySortedSet.Add(key);
}
Both are failing with the exception:
Object must be the same type as the
enum
My question is: What goes wrong and how can I archive my goal?
Used Solution
I've decided to life with the downside
of redundant data against slower
lookups and decided to implement a
List<Enum> which will retain the
insert order parallel to my already
existing HashTable.
In my case I just have about 50-150
Elements so I decided to benchmark the
Hashtable against the
List<KeyValuePair<object,object>>
Therefore I have create me the
following helper to implement
ContainsKey() to the
List<KeyValuePair<object,object>>
static bool ContainsKey(this List<KeyValuePair<object, object>> list, object key)
{
foreach (KeyValuePair<object, object> p in list)
{
if (p.Key.Equals(key))
return true;
}
return false;
}
I inserted the same 100 Entries and
checked randomly for one of ten
different entries in a 300000 loop.
And... the difference was tiny so I
decided to go with the
List<KeyValuePair<object,object>>

I think you should store your data in an instance of List<KeyValuePair<Enum, MyEnum>> or Dictionary<Enum, MyEnum>.
SortedSet and SortedList are generic, but your keys are EnumTypeA/EnumTypeB, you need to specify the generic T with their base class(System.Enum) like:
SortedList<Enum, MyEnum> sorted = new SortedList<Enum, MyEnum>();
EDIT
Why you got this exception
SortedList and SortedSet use a comparer inside to check if two keys are equal. Comparer<Enum>.Default will be used as the comparer if you didn't specify the comparer in the constructor. Unfortunately Comparer<Enum>.Default isn't implemented as you expected. It throws the exception if the two enums are not the same type.
How to resolve the problem
If you don't want to use a List<KeyValuePair<Enum, MyEnum>> and insist using SortedLIst, you need to specify a comparer to the constructor like this:
class EnumComparer : IComparer<Enum>
{
public int Compare(Enum x, Enum y)
{
return x.GetHashCode() - y.GetHashCode();
}
}
var sorted = new SortedList<Enum, MyEnum>(new EnumComparer());
Btw, I think you need to obtain the "inserting order"? If so, List<KeyValuePair<K,V>> is a better choice, because SortedSet will prevent duplicated items.

Related

Where to store two values for further comparing?

After click over row in DataGridView I take value of two cells in this row:
string id = Convert.ToString(dataGridView1.Rows[e.RowIndex].Cells["Number"].Value);
string type = Convert.ToString(dataGridView1.Rows[e.RowIndex].Cells["dataGridViewTextBoxColumn46"].Value);
So, in which structure to store these values, that to take off them further?
In result I need to compare if id, type are exist in structure.
I tried Dictionary<int, int>. But it is hard to check if there values are in Dictionary like this: Dictionary<'id', 'type'>
A simple HashSet<Tuple<string, string>> would probably do:
HashSet<T> is a set of values which provides O(1) average lookup time for "contains" queries.
Tuple<T1, T2> is a class representing a pair of values, which uses value-type equality semantics, i.e. implements Equals and GetHashCode using the values stored inside the class, meaning that two different instances with same members will be considered equal (and this is important if you want to use them as HashSet<T> keys.
So, you would simply do something like:
// somewhere in your method or class
HashSet<Tuple<string, string>> hashset = new HashSet<Tuple<string, string>>();
// once you get the (id, type) pair:
hashset.Add(Tuple.Create(id, key));
// to check if the items are in the hashset:
if (hashset.Contains(Tuple.Create("a", "b"))
{
// do stuff
}
// to remove the item from the hashset
hashset.Remove(Tuple.Create("a", "b"));

Remove a single value from a NameValueCollection

My data source could have duplicate keys with values.
typeA : 1
typeB : 2
typeA : 11
I chose to use NameValueCollection as it enables entering duplicate keys.
I want to remove specific key\value pair from the collection, but NameValueCollection.Remove(key) removes all values associated with the specified key.
Is there a way to remove single key\value pair from a NameValueCollection,
OR
Is there a better collection in C# that fits my data
[EDIT 1]
First, thanks for all the answers :)
I think I should have mentioned that my data source is XML.
I used System.Xml.Linq.XDocument to query for type and also it was handy to remove a particular value.
Now, my question is, for large size data, is using XDocument a good choice considering the performance?
If not what are other alternatives (maybe back to NameValueCollection and using one of the techniques mentioned to remove data)
The idea of storing multiple values with the same key is somehow strange. But I think you can retrieve all values using GetValues then remove the one you don't need and put them back using Set and then subsequent Add methods. You can make a separate extension method method for this.
NameValueCollection doesn't really allow to have multiple entries with the same key. It merely concatenates the new values of existing keys into a comma separated list of values (see NameValueCollection.Add.
So there really is just a single value per key. You could conceivably get the value split them on ',' and remove the offending value.
Edit: #ElDog is correct, there is a GetValues method which does this for you so no need to split.
A better option I think would be to use Dictionary<string, IList<int>> or Dictionary<string, ISet<int>> to store the values as discrete erm, values
You may convert it to Hashtable
var x = new NameValueCollection();
x.Add("a", "1");
x.Add("b", "2");
x.Add("a", "1");
var y = x.AllKeys.ToDictionary(k => k, k=>x[k]);
make your own method, it works for me --
public static void Remove<TKey,TValue>(
this List<KeyValuePair<TKey,TValue>> list,
TKey key,
TValue value) {
return list.Remove(new KeyValuePair<TKey,TValue>(key,value));
}
then call it on list as --
list.Remove(key,value); //Pass the key value...
Perhaps not the best way, but....
public class SingleType
{
public string Name;
public int Value;
}
List<SingleType> typeList = new List<SingleType>();
typeList.Add (new SingleType { Name = "TypeA", Value = 1 });
typeList.Add (new SingleType { Name = "TypeA", Value = 3 });
typeList.Remove (typeList.Where (t => t.Name == "TypeA" && t.Value == 1).Single());
You can use the Dictionary collection instead:
Dictionary<string, int> dictionary = new Dictionary<string, int>();
dictionary.Add("typeA", 1);
dictionary.Add("typeB", 1);
When you try to insert type: 11 it will throw exception as Key already exists. So you can enter a new key to insert this data.
Refer this Tutorial for further help.

Byref issues in C#

I'm having difficulty with a dictionary that I want to compare an updated version to the original version.
The first method passes in the dictionary, then from there it gets passed to a static helper class that updates that dictionary.
Before I pass the original dictionary to the helper class, I want to make a copy of the original dictionary so I can compare.
This is where I'm having trouble. After the helper class, the 'copy' of the dictionary has been updated too.
I've even tried making a struct that contains a dictionary thinking that'd copy the original dictionary values, but that seems to be by ref too! Here is a snippet of the code.
public PartialViewResult updateItem(string submit, FormCollection Collection)
{
SurveyItem UpdatedItem = new SurveyItem();
ItemSettingsCopy OriginalSettings;
ItemBank CurrentSurvey = (ItemBank)Session["Survey"];
string _itemName = (string)Session["CurrentItem"];
OriginalSettings.ItemSettings = CurrentSurvey[_itemName].ItemSettings;
//this is where I'm trying to make a copy of the original settings.
UpdatedItem = BankManagerHelper.UpdateItem(CurrentSurvey[_itemName], Collection, submit); //static item now updates the fields in the item
//AT THIS POINT OriginalSettings.ItemSettings HAS BEEN CHANGED TOO
You need to clone the dictionary.
This answer is a way to go. https://stackoverflow.com/a/139841/61256
[This code was copied from the link]
public static Dictionary<TKey, TValue> CloneDictionaryCloningValues<TKey, TValue>
(Dictionary<TKey, TValue> original) where TValue : ICloneable
{
Dictionary<TKey, TValue> ret = new Dictionary<TKey, TValue>(original.Count,
original.Comparer);
foreach (KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue> entry in original)
{
ret.Add(entry.Key, (TValue) entry.Value.Clone());
}
return ret;
}
This is where I'm having trouble. After the helper class, the 'copy'
of the dictionary has been updated too.
Yes, as your are actually updating the same variable in memory. When you pass a Dictionary as parameter of a function, you actually pass a reference to your variable.
What you could do is create a new dictionary that contains the same list of objects before you call your UpdateItem method. You'll then have 2 different objects in memory, so you'll be able to compare them.
Note that you might want to create new instances of the items that are stored in your dictionary, or both dictionary will contain references to the same objects (I don't know if you want to compare dictionaries themselves or objects stored into dictionaries).

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

Accessing a Dictionary.Keys Key through a numeric index

I'm using a Dictionary<string, int> where the int is a count of the key.
Now, I need to access the last-inserted Key inside the Dictionary, but I do not know the name of it. The obvious attempt:
int LastCount = mydict[mydict.keys[mydict.keys.Count]];
does not work, because Dictionary.Keys does not implement a []-indexer.
I just wonder if there is any similar class? I thought about using a Stack, but that only stores a string. I could now create my own struct and then use a Stack<MyStruct>, but I wonder if there is another alternative, essentially a Dictionary that implements an []-indexer on the Keys?
As #Falanwe points out in a comment, doing something like this is incorrect:
int LastCount = mydict.Keys.ElementAt(mydict.Count -1);
You should not depend on the order of keys in a Dictionary. If you need ordering, you should use an OrderedDictionary, as suggested in this answer. The other answers on this page are interesting as well.
You can use an OrderedDictionary.
Represents a collection of key/value
pairs that are accessible by the key
or index.
A Dictionary is a Hash Table, so you have no idea the order of insertion!
If you want to know the last inserted key I would suggest extending the Dictionary to include a LastKeyInserted value.
E.g.:
public MyDictionary<K, T> : IDictionary<K, T>
{
private IDictionary<K, T> _InnerDictionary;
public K LastInsertedKey { get; set; }
public MyDictionary()
{
_InnerDictionary = new Dictionary<K, T>();
}
#region Implementation of IDictionary
public void Add(KeyValuePair<K, T> item)
{
_InnerDictionary.Add(item);
LastInsertedKey = item.Key;
}
public void Add(K key, T value)
{
_InnerDictionary.Add(key, value);
LastInsertedKey = key;
}
.... rest of IDictionary methods
#endregion
}
You will run into problems however when you use .Remove() so to overcome this you will have to keep an ordered list of the keys inserted.
Why don't you just extend the dictionary class to add in a last key inserted property. Something like the following maybe?
public class ExtendedDictionary : Dictionary<string, int>
{
private int lastKeyInserted = -1;
public int LastKeyInserted
{
get { return lastKeyInserted; }
set { lastKeyInserted = value; }
}
public void AddNew(string s, int i)
{
lastKeyInserted = i;
base.Add(s, i);
}
}
You could always do this:
string[] temp = new string[mydict.count];
mydict.Keys.CopyTo(temp, 0)
int LastCount = mydict[temp[mydict.count - 1]]
But I wouldn't recommend it. There's no guarantee that the last inserted key will be at the end of the array. The ordering for Keys on MSDN is unspecified, and subject to change. In my very brief test, it does seem to be in order of insertion, but you'd be better off building in proper bookkeeping like a stack--as you suggest (though I don't see the need of a struct based on your other statements)--or single variable cache if you just need to know the latest key.
I think you can do something like this, the syntax might be wrong, havent used C# in a while
To get the last item
Dictionary<string, int>.KeyCollection keys = mydict.keys;
string lastKey = keys.Last();
or use Max instead of Last to get the max value, I dont know which one fits your code better.
I agree with the second part of Patrick's answer. Even if in some tests it seems to keep insertion order, the documentation (and normal behavior for dictionaries and hashes) explicitly states the ordering is unspecified.
You're just asking for trouble depending on the ordering of the keys. Add your own bookkeeping (as Patrick said, just a single variable for the last added key) to be sure. Also, don't be tempted by all the methods such as Last and Max on the dictionary as those are probably in relation to the key comparator (I'm not sure about that).
In case you decide to use dangerous code that is subject to breakage, this extension function will fetch a key from a Dictionary<K,V> according to its internal indexing (which for Mono and .NET currently appears to be in the same order as you get by enumerating the Keys property).
It is much preferable to use Linq: dict.Keys.ElementAt(i), but that function will iterate O(N); the following is O(1) but with a reflection performance penalty.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Reflection;
public static class Extensions
{
public static TKey KeyByIndex<TKey,TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dict, int idx)
{
Type type = typeof(Dictionary<TKey, TValue>);
FieldInfo info = type.GetField("entries", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
if (info != null)
{
// .NET
Object element = ((Array)info.GetValue(dict)).GetValue(idx);
return (TKey)element.GetType().GetField("key", BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance).GetValue(element);
}
// Mono:
info = type.GetField("keySlots", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
return (TKey)((Array)info.GetValue(dict)).GetValue(idx);
}
};
One alternative would be a KeyedCollection if the key is embedded in the value.
Just create a basic implementation in a sealed class to use.
So to replace Dictionary<string, int> (which isn't a very good example as there isn't a clear key for a int).
private sealed class IntDictionary : KeyedCollection<string, int>
{
protected override string GetKeyForItem(int item)
{
// The example works better when the value contains the key. It falls down a bit for a dictionary of ints.
return item.ToString();
}
}
KeyedCollection<string, int> intCollection = new ClassThatContainsSealedImplementation.IntDictionary();
intCollection.Add(7);
int valueByIndex = intCollection[0];
The way you worded the question leads me to believe that the int in the Dictionary contains the item's "position" on the Dictionary. Judging from the assertion that the keys aren't stored in the order that they're added, if this is correct, that would mean that keys.Count (or .Count - 1, if you're using zero-based) should still always be the number of the last-entered key?
If that's correct, is there any reason you can't instead use Dictionary<int, string> so that you can use mydict[ mydict.Keys.Count ]?
I don't know if this would work because I'm pretty sure that the keys aren't stored in the order they are added, but you could cast the KeysCollection to a List and then get the last key in the list... but it would be worth having a look.
The only other thing I can think of is to store the keys in a lookup list and add the keys to the list before you add them to the dictionary... it's not pretty tho.
To expand on Daniels post and his comments regarding the key, since the key is embedded within the value anyway, you could resort to using a KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue> as the value. The main reasoning for this is that, in general, the Key isn't necessarily directly derivable from the value.
Then it'd look like this:
public sealed class CustomDictionary<TKey, TValue>
: KeyedCollection<TKey, KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue>>
{
protected override TKey GetKeyForItem(KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue> item)
{
return item.Key;
}
}
To use this as in the previous example, you'd do:
CustomDictionary<string, int> custDict = new CustomDictionary<string, int>();
custDict.Add(new KeyValuePair<string, int>("key", 7));
int valueByIndex = custDict[0].Value;
int valueByKey = custDict["key"].Value;
string keyByIndex = custDict[0].Key;
A dictionary may not be very intuitive for using index for reference but, you can have similar operations with an array of KeyValuePair:
ex.
KeyValuePair<string, string>[] filters;
You can also use SortedList and its Generic counterpart. These two classes and in Andrew Peters answer mentioned OrderedDictionary are dictionary classes in which items can be accessed by index (position) as well as by key. How to use these classes you can find: SortedList Class , SortedList Generic Class .
Visual Studio's UserVoice gives a link to generic OrderedDictionary implementation by dotmore.
But if you only need to get key/value pairs by index and don't need to get values by keys, you may use one simple trick. Declare some generic class (I called it ListArray) as follows:
class ListArray<T> : List<T[]> { }
You may also declare it with constructors:
class ListArray<T> : List<T[]>
{
public ListArray() : base() { }
public ListArray(int capacity) : base(capacity) { }
}
For example, you read some key/value pairs from a file and just want to store them in the order they were read so to get them later by index:
ListArray<string> settingsRead = new ListArray<string>();
using (var sr = new StreamReader(myFile))
{
string line;
while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
{
string[] keyValueStrings = line.Split(separator);
for (int i = 0; i < keyValueStrings.Length; i++)
keyValueStrings[i] = keyValueStrings[i].Trim();
settingsRead.Add(keyValueStrings);
}
}
// Later you get your key/value strings simply by index
string[] myKeyValueStrings = settingsRead[index];
As you may have noticed, you can have not necessarily just pairs of key/value in your ListArray. The item arrays may be of any length, like in jagged array.

Categories

Resources