What's the fastest way to copy the values and keys from one dictionary into another in C#?

Question

There doesn't seem to be a dictionary.AddRange() method. Does anyone know a better way to copy the items to another dictionary without using a foreach loop.

I'm using the System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary. This is for .NET 2.0.

Answer 1

There's the Dictionary constructor that takes another Dictionary.

You'll have to cast it IDictionary, but there is an Add() overload that takes KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue>. You're still using foreach, though.

Answer 2

There's nothing wrong with a for/foreach loop. That's all a hypothetical AddRange method would do anyway.

The only extra concern I'd have is with memory allocation behaviour, because adding a large number of entries could cause multiple reallocations and re-hashes. There's no way to increase the capacity of an existing Dictionary by a given amount. You might be better off allocating a new Dictionary with sufficient capacity for both current ones, but you'd still need a loop to load at least one of them.

Answer 3

var Animal = new Dictionary<string, string>();

one can pass existing animal Dictionary to the constructor.

Dictionary<string, string> NewAnimals = new Dictionary<string, string>(Animal);

Answer 4

For fun, I created this extension method to dictionary. This should do a deep copy wherever possible.

public static Dictionary<TKey, TValue> DeepCopy<TKey,TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dictionary)
        {
            Dictionary<TKey, TValue> d2 = new Dictionary<TKey, TValue>();

            bool keyIsCloneable = default(TKey) is ICloneable;
            bool valueIsCloneable = default(TValue) is ICloneable;

            foreach (KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue> kvp in dictionary)
            {
                TKey key = default(TKey);
                TValue value = default(TValue);
                if (keyIsCloneable)
                {
                    key = (TKey)((ICloneable)(kvp.Key)).Clone();
                }

                else
                {
                    key = kvp.Key;
                }

                if (valueIsCloneable)
                {
                    value = (TValue)((ICloneable)(kvp.Value)).Clone();
                }

                else
                {
                    value = kvp.Value;
                }

                d2.Add(key, value);
            }

            return d2;
        }

Answer 5

For a primitive type dictionary:

public void runIntDictionary()
{
    Dictionary<int, int> myIntegerDict = new Dictionary<int, int>() { { 0, 0 }, { 1, 1 }, { 2, 2 } };
    Dictionary<int, int> cloneIntegerDict = new Dictionary<int, int>();
    cloneIntegerDict = myIntegerDict.Select(x => x.Key).ToList().ToDictionary<int, int>(x => x, y => myIntegerDict[y]);
}

or with an Object that implement ICloneable:

public void runObjectDictionary()
{
    Dictionary<int, number> myDict = new Dictionary<int, number>() { { 3, new number(3) }, { 4, new number(4) }, { 5, new number(5) } };
    Dictionary<int, number> cloneDict = new Dictionary<int, number>();
    cloneDict = myDict.Select(x => x.Key).ToList().ToDictionary<int, number>(x => x, y => myDict[y].Clone());
}

public class number : ICloneable
{
    public number()
    {
    }
    public number(int newNumber)
    {
        nr = newnumber;
    }
    public int nr;

    public object Clone()
    {
        return new number() { nr = nr };
    }
    public override string ToString()
    {
        return nr.ToString();
    }
}

Answer 6

The reason AddRange is not implemented on Dictionary is due to the way in which a hashtable (i.e. Dictionary) stores its entries: They're not contiguous in memory as we see in an array or a List, instead they're fragmented across multiple hash buckets, so you cannot block-copy the whole range into a List or you'll get a bunch of empty entries which the Dictionary usually hides from you, the user, through its interface. AddRange assumes a single contiguous range of valid data and can therefore use a fast copy implementation e.g.Array.Copy (like C's memcpy).

Due to this fragmentation, we are left no choice but to iterate through the Dictionary's entries manually in order to extract valid keys and values into a single contiguous List or array. This can be confirmed in Microsoft's reference implementation, where CopyTo is implemented using for.

Answer 7

If you're dealing with two existing objects, you might get some mileage with the CopyTo method: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645053.aspx

Use the Add method of the other collection (receiver) to absorb them.

Answer 8

I don't understand, why not using the Dictionary( Dictionary ) (as suggested by ageektrapped ).

Do you want to perform a Shallow Copy or a Deep Copy? (that is, both Dictionaries pointing to the same references or new copies of every object inside the new dictionary?)

If you want to create a new Dictionary pointing to new objects, I think that the only way is through a foreach.