3 Dimentional Dictionary - vba

Question

I'm trying make to a 3 Dimension Dictionary to store the data in the form of tools(material)(part)(attribute), and I have managed to create the Dictionary like this:
Dim Tools As New Dictionary(Of String, Dictionary(Of String, Dictionary(Of String, Decimal)))
And what I basically want to do is have some subs that manage that for me instead of dealing with that mess, and I want it to be like this like this:
Add_Attribute("Iron", "Pickaxe Head", "Durability", 204)
Get_Attribute("Stone", "Pickaxe Head", "Mining Speed")
Any answers would be greatly be appreciated.

Answer 1

My comment was not worded properly.
Create a class with add/get attributes function that accepts 3 parameters.
Concatenate the parameters and use it as dictionary key.
Option Explicit
Dim oDict As Dictionary
Public Function Add_Attribute(psParam1 As String, psParam2 As String, psParam3 As String, psValue As String)
Dim sKey As String
sKey = BuildKey(psParam1, psParam2, psParam3)
If oDict.Exists(sKey) Then
oDict.Item(sKey) = psValue
Else
oDict.Add sKey, psValue
End If
End Function
Public Function Get_Attribute(psParam1 As String, psParam2 As String, psParam3 As String) As String
Dim sKey As String
sKey = BuildKey(psParam1, psParam2, psParam3)
If oDict.Exists(sKey) Then
Get_Attribute = oDict.Item(sKey)
Else
Get_Attribute = ""
End If
End Function
Private Sub Class_Initialize()
Set oDict = New Dictionary
End Sub
Private Function BuildKey(psParam1 As String, psParam2 As String, psParam3 As String) As String
BuildKey = Join(Array(psParam1, psParam2, psParam3), "#")
End Function
Private Sub Class_Terminate()
Set oDict = Nothing
End Sub

Answer 2

Jules' answer of a custom class and concatenation of the three strings as a key will work very nicely for you and is a neat solution to your problem.
I'm posting another answer here for anyone who wants more of a dot notation style of solution. So one of the lines in your example could look something like:
mTools("Pickaxe Head").Attr("Durability").Material("Iron") = 204
I'm guessing you're deriving the values from a comboxbox or something similar, so working with strings might serve you fine. However, if you wished, you could go one stage further and create objects for the Attributes and Material parameters to achieve true dot notation (I didn't do the Parts parameter but you could do that one too):
mTools("Pickaxe Head").Durability.OnIron = 204
From a development point of view, the time consuming part would be to create all the parameter objects and keys, but if you are intending to manipulate the data anything more than trivially, it could make your life easier further down the track.
For your own project, are you certain that the data is genuinely 3 dimensional? Perhaps it's just the variable names that you've picked, but it seems as though you have one main object, ie the part (Pickaxe Head) which has some attributes (Durability and Mining Speed) which themselves have values based on the material they're operating on (Stone and Iron). Structurally, could it look like this?:
In terms of the code for this solution, create three classes. I've called them clsKeys, clsMaterials and clsPart.
For your clsKeys, the code is simply your field names:
Public Durability As String
Public MiningSpeed As String
Public Iron As String
Public Stone As String
For clsPart, the code contains the object names and a means of accessing them by string:
Public Name As String
Public Durability As New clsMaterials
Public MiningSpeed As New clsMaterials
Private mProperties As New Collection
Public Property Get Attr(field As String) As clsMaterials
Set Attr = mProperties(field)
End Property
Private Sub Class_Initialize()
With Keys
mProperties.Add Durability, .Durability
mProperties.Add MiningSpeed, .MiningSpeed
End With
End Sub
clsMaterials is similar:
Public OnStone As Integer
Public OnIron As Integer
Private mProperties As New Collection
Public Property Let Material(field As String, value As Variant)
mProperties.Remove field
mProperties.Add value, field
End Property
Public Property Get Material(field As String) As Variant
Material = mProperties(field)
End Property
Private Sub Class_Initialize()
With Keys
mProperties.Add OnStone, .Stone
mProperties.Add OnIron, .Iron
End With
End Sub
These classes can take as many objects as you like. You'll note I've instantiated the objects in the declaration which isn't best form but I've done it in the interest of space.
Finally, in a Module you need 3 routines: one to create the field keys, one to populate the data and one to retrieve it.
For the keys:
Option Explicit
Public Keys As clsKeys
Private mTools As Collection
Sub CreateKeys()
Set Keys = New clsKeys
With Keys
.Durability = "Durability"
.MiningSpeed = "Mining Speed"
.Iron = "Iron"
.Stone = "Stone"
End With
End Sub
For data population:
Sub PopulateData()
Dim oPart As clsPart
Set mTools = New Collection
Set oPart = New clsPart
With oPart
.Name = "Pickaxe Head"
'You could use dot notation
.Durability.OnIron = 204
.Durability.OnStone = 100
'Or plain strings
.Attr("Mining Speed").Material("Stone") = 50
.Attr("Mining Speed").Material("Iron") = 200
mTools.Add oPart, .Name
End With
End Sub
and for data retrieval:
Sub RetrieveValue()
Dim oPart As clsPart
Dim v As Variant
Set oPart = mTools("Pickaxe Head")
With oPart
'Using dot notation
v = oPart.Durability.OnIron
Debug.Print v
'Using plain strings
v = oPart.Attr("Durability").Material("Stone")
Debug.Print v
End With
'Or even without assigning the oPart variable
v = mTools("Pickaxe Head").Attr("Mining Speed").Material("Iron")
Debug.Print v
End Sub