Please help me re-write this code sample in PHP to C#:
$stringArray = array();
$stringArray['field1'] = 'value1';
$stringArray['field2'] = 'value2';
$stringArray['field3'] = 'value3';
foreach ($stringArray as $key => $value)
{
echo $key . ': ' . $value;
echo "\r\n";
}
Named arrays do not exist in C#. An alternative is to use a Dictionary<string, string> to recreate a similar structure.
Dictionary<string, string> stringArray = new Dictionary<string, string>();
stringArray.Add("field1", "value1");
stringArray.Add("field2", "value2");
stringArray.Add("field3", "value3");
In order to iterate through them, you can use the following:
foreach( KeyValuePair<string, string> kvp in stringArray ) {
Console.WriteLine("Key = {0}, Value = {1}", kvp.Key, kvp.Value);
}
var map = new Dictionary<String, String>
{
{ "field1", "value1" },
{ "field2", "value2" },
{ "field3", "value3" }
}
Or without the collection initializer.
var map = new Dictionary<String, String>();
map["field1"] = "value1";
map["field2"] = "value2";
map["field3"] = "value3";
There is even a specialized class StringDictionary to map string to strings in the often overlooked namespace System.Collections.Specialized, but I prefer Dictionary<TKey, TValue> because it implements a richer set of interfaces.
You are trying to recreate an associative array - in C# I would usually use a Dictionary
Dictionary<string,string> stringArray = new Dictionary<string,string>();
and then you can assign values in two ways
stringArray["field1"] = "value1";
stringArray.Add("field2","value2");
Dictionaries can be used to store any key/value pair combination, such as:
Dictionary<int,string>()
Dictionary<long,KeyValuePair<string,long>>()
etc.
If you absolutely know that you only need a key that is a string that will be returning a value that is a string then you can also use a NameValueCollection
NameValueCollection stringArray = new NameValueCollection();
and again you can use the same two methods to add values
stringArray["field1"] = "value1";
stringArray.Add("field2","value2");
Both datatypes also have other convenience methods like
stringArray.Clear(); // make it empty
stringArray.Remove("field1"); // remove field1 but leave everything else
check out your intellisense in visual studio for more good stuff
Additional nodes
Note that a NameValueColelction does not (solely) provide a one-to-one mapping - you can associate multiple values with a single name.
var map = new NameValueCollection();
map.Add("Bar", "Foo");
map.Add("Bar", "Buz");
// Prints 'Foo,Buz' - the comma-separated list of all values
// associated with the name 'Bar'.
Console.WriteLine(map["Bar"]);
