check if key exists in Icollection using vb.net - vb.net

Is there an easy way to check if a particular key exists in a keyvalue collection without ofcourse looping through the collection ?
Like an alternative for Dictionary.ContainsKey() ?
Public mod_filters As ICollection(Of KeyValuePair(Of String, String)) = New Dictionary(Of String, String)
this is my collection . I need to find if a particular key exists in the collection. If it doesnt then add that key and a corresponding value.

Related

ADDRESS LIST OF IGROUPING OBJECT

I have a list of object grouped by this:
Dim duplicates = test.GroupBy(Function(i) i.Total) _
.Where(Function(x) x.Count() > 1) _
.[Select](Function(x) x).ToList
Now I can see throug the debugger that It group correctly the duplicates objects of the list test by a key that is the total property.
Now for each key value I need to get the objects, and than do some stuf with them (for each cycle).
My problem is that I can't access theme in anyway. If I try to cast I always get :Value of type List(Of IGrouping(Of Integer, myObject)) cannot be converted to List(Of myObject))
How can I access this data and manipulate it?
The prospective was wrong. Switched to list of object and changed approach for sorting groupin without linq.

Use Dictionary by variable name

I have several dictionary types assigned like this
Public aryAAA As New Dictionary(Of Integer, Dictionary(Of String, String))
Public aryBBB As New Dictionary(Of Integer, Dictionary(Of String, String))
Public aryCCC As New Dictionary(Of String, String)
Public aryDDD As New Dictionary(Of String, String)
In a database I stored the names of aryAAA, aryBBB, aryCCC, and aryDDD. In my program if I read a database record and it has aryCCC returned, I then want to be able to use that dictionary.
I was thinking that I would have to assign an object to the aryCCC by iterating through the system.collecton.generic.dictionary and then use that object to retrieve the data stored. Not sure how I would do this or if there is a better way to use the dictionary by a variable returned name?
Thanks for any help on this.
You'll need a Select or If/Else for this. We could do a little better within the type system if all the dictionaries held the same type of object, but since there are differences this is the best we can do:
If dbValue = "aryCCC" Then
'Do stuff with aryCCC
Else If dbValue = "aryAAA" Then
'Do stuff with aryAAA
'etc
End If
Even reflection won't help much here, since those variables aren't members and we'd still have the different types to deal with.
Ultimately, you have a run-time value from the database you want to match up to compile-time variable names, and that never goes well.

Dictionary containing an array of strings as value

Is it possible to have a string array as the value in a dictionary? I need to save the description (Hour2) as the key and as value being able to access both the price (elements_PR(4)) and the time offset (1). Is there a good way to do that?
Dim pr_val(2) As String
Dim PR As New Dictionary(Of String, pr_val)
PR.Add("Hour2", {elements_PR(4), "1"})
There is no reason why you can't do it - you could also use values of type Tuple(Of String, String), if the number of elements is fixed in advance - in this case, 2. It'd be easier to perform comparisons on, and would also be immutable, which is often a good idea.
You sure can. Try something like this:
Dim PR As New Dictionary(Of String, IEnumerable(Of String))
PR.Add("Hour2", {elements_PR(4), "1"})
It seems to me that you could create a class representing the price and the time offset. Therefore, you could do something like PR.Add("Hour2", instanceOfClass).
Depending on the meaning of the description in your situation, you could even include it in your class. It would allow you to use another approach with a List(Of YourClass) containing a list of items with the description, the price and the time offset. To retrieve an item by "key", you could then use some Linq.
Short answer - yes. Assuming the following was declared somewhere:
Dim elements_PR(4) As String : elements_PR(4) = "Hello"
Dim PR As New Dictionary(Of String, String())
You can either do:
PR.Add("Hour2", {elements_PR(4), "1"})
or
Dim pr_val() As String = {elements_PR(4), "1"}
PR.Add("Hour1", pr_val)

vb.NET Select distinct... how to use it?

Coming from a C# background I am a bit miffed by my inability to get this simple linq query working:
Dim data As List(Of Dictionary(Of String, Object))
Dim dbm As AccessDBManager = GlobalObjectManager.DBManagers("SecondaryAccessDBManager")
data = dbm.Select("*", "T町丁目位置_各務原")
Dim towns As IEnumerable(Of String())
towns = data.Select(Function(d) New String() {d("町名_Trim").ToString(), d("ふりがな").ToString()})
towns = towns.Where(Function(s) s(0).StartsWith(searchTerms) Or s(1).StartsWith(searchTerms)).Distinct()
Call UpdateTownsListView(towns.ToList())
I pasted together the relevant bits, so hopefully there is no error here...
data is loaded from an access database and is a list with the data from each row stored as a dictionary.
In this case element from data has a field containing the name of a Japanese town and its reading and some other stuff like the row ID etc.
I have a form with a textbox. When the user types something in, I would like to retrieve from data the town names corresponding to the search terms without duplicates.
Right now the results contain loads of duplicates> How can I get this sorted to only get distinct results?
I read from some other posts that a key might be needed, but how can I declare this with extension methods?
Distinct uses the default equality comparer to compare values.
Your collection contains arrays of strings, so Distinct won't work the way you expected since two different arrays never equals each other (since ReferenceEquals would be used in the end).
A solution is to use the Distinct overload which takes an IEqualityComparer.
Class TwoStringArrayEqualityComparer
Implements IEqualityComparer(Of String())
Public Function Equals(s1 As String(), s2 As String()) As Boolean Implements IEqualityComparer(Of String()).Equals
' Note that checking for Nothing is missing
Return s1(0).Equals(s2(0)) AndAlso s1(1).Equals(s2(1))
End Function
Public Function GetHashCode(s As String()) As Integer Implements IEqualityComparer(Of String()).GetHashCode
Return (s(0) + s(1)).GetHashCode() ' probably not perfect :-)
End Function
End Class
...
towns = towns.Where(...).Distinct(new TwoStringArrayEqualityComparer())

how to read/write from/into a list of dictionary

i want to know how to manipulate the data from a
Public ListD As New List(Of Dictionary(Of String, String))
meaning read/write. Can you help me please?
I've tried with
ListD.Add("string_as_key", var_as_value)
but it haven't worked
Thanks!
In the case of
("string_as_key", var_as_value)
To add that to your ListD you would first have to either create a dictionary and add that item to it, or add that item to one of the existing dictionaries.
For example:
'Create dictionary
Dim dic as new Dictionary(Of String, String)
dic.Add("string_as_key", var_as_value)
'Add it to list
ListD.Add(dic)
To read a single item from your ListD would look something like:
Dim dic As Dictionary(Of String, String) = ListD(0)
Dim var_as_value As String = dic("string_as_key")
A dictionary is a group of multiple items in itself. So if you have several pairs of things with unique items you can use as a key, a dictionary is a good choice.
I may be way off here since I don't know what you are using it for, but I get the impression that rather than a list of Dictionary you may be better of with just a dictionary(Of String, String)
Your question can't really be 'answered' but to give you a start have a look at the online documentation, specifically:
List(Of T) Class
Dictionary(Of TKey, TValue) Class
How to loop in VB.NET <- Start here and work upwards when you understand each one.