I want to use a 2-D array in C#, e.g:
string[,] a = new string[,]
{
{"aunt", "AUNT_ID"},
{"Sam", "AUNT_NAME"},
{"clozapine", "OPTION"},
};
My requirement is that when I pass "aunt" to this array I want to get corresponding AUNT_ID from the 2-D array.
As others have said, a Dictionary<string, string> would be better - and you can use a collection initializer to create it simply:
Dictionary<string, string> dictionary = new Dictionary<string, string>
{
{"ant", "AUNT_ID"},
{"Sam", "AUNT_NAME"},
{"clozapine", "OPTION"},
};
If you're confident that your key is in the dictionary, and you're happy for an exception to be thrown otherwise:
string value = dictionary[key];
or if it might not be:
string value;
if (dictionary.TryGetValue(key, out value))
{
// Use value here
}
else
{
// Key wasn't in dictionary
}
If you really need to use an array, if you can change it to a multidimensional array (string[][]), you can use:
// Will throw if there are no matches
var value = array.First(x => x[0] == key)[1];
Or again to be more circumspect:
var pair = array.FirstOrDefault(x => x[0] == key);
if (pair != null)
{
string value = pair[1];
// Use value here
}
else
{
// Key wasn't in dictionary
}
LINQ unfortunately doesn't work quite as well on rectangular arrays. It probably wouldn't be too hard to write a method to allow it to be treated "somewhat" like an array of arrays, admittedly...
Use Dictionary<string, string> for that:
Dictionary<string, string> arr = new Dictionary<string, string>();
arr.Add("ant", "AUNT_ID");
arr.Add("Sam", "AUNT_NAME");
arr.Add("clozapine", "OPTION");
string k = arr["ant"]; // "AUNT_ID"
The best option for you is to use Dictionary, but if you still wants to use 2D array, you may try the following
string[,] a = new string[,]
{
{"ant", "AUNT_ID"},
{"Sam", "AUNT_NAME"},
{"clozapine", "OPTION"},
};
string search = "ant";
string result = String.Empty;
for (int i = 0; i < a.GetLength(0); i++) //loop until the row limit
{
if (a[i, 0] == search)
{
result = a[i, 1];
break; //break the loop on find
}
}
Console.WriteLine(result); // this will display AUNT_ID
It looks rather like you want a dictionary:
Dictionary<string, string> a = new Dictionary<string, string>();
a.Add("ant", "AUNT_ID");
a.Add("Sam", "AUNT_NAME");
a.Add("clozapine", "OPTION");
string s = a["ant"]; // gets "AUNT_ID"
To check if a key exists in the dictionary:
if (a.ContainsKey("ant")) {
...
}
Or:
string s;
if (a.TryGetValue("ant", out s)) {
...
}
for (i=0; i<3; i++){
if (!String.Compare(a[i][0], string)){
stored_string= a[i][1];
}
}
