Merging dictionaries in C#

Solution 1:

This partly depends on what you want to happen if you run into duplicates. For instance, you could do:

var result = dictionaries.SelectMany(dict => dict)
                         .ToDictionary(pair => pair.Key, pair => pair.Value);

That will throw an exception if you get any duplicate keys.

EDIT: If you use ToLookup then you'll get a lookup which can have multiple values per key. You could then convert that to a dictionary:

var result = dictionaries.SelectMany(dict => dict)
                         .ToLookup(pair => pair.Key, pair => pair.Value)
                         .ToDictionary(group => group.Key, group => group.First());

It's a bit ugly - and inefficient - but it's the quickest way to do it in terms of code. (I haven't tested it, admittedly.)

You could write your own ToDictionary2 extension method of course (with a better name, but I don't have time to think of one now) - it's not terribly hard to do, just overwriting (or ignoring) duplicate keys. The important bit (to my mind) is using SelectMany, and realising that a dictionary supports iteration over its key/value pairs.

Solution 2:

I would do it like this:

dictionaryFrom.ToList().ForEach(x => dictionaryTo.Add(x.Key, x.Value));

Simple and easy. According to this blog post it's even faster than most loops as its underlying implementation accesses elements by index rather than enumerator (see this answer).

It will of course throw an exception if there are duplicates, so you'll have to check before merging.

Solution 3:

This doesn't explode if there are multiple keys ("righter" keys replace "lefter" keys), can merge a number of dictionaries (if desired) and preserves the type (with the restriction that it requires a meaningful default public constructor):

public static class DictionaryExtensions
{
    // Works in C#3/VS2008:
    // Returns a new dictionary of this ... others merged leftward.
    // Keeps the type of 'this', which must be default-instantiable.
    // Example: 
    //   result = map.MergeLeft(other1, other2, ...)
    public static T MergeLeft<T,K,V>(this T me, params IDictionary<K,V>[] others)
        where T : IDictionary<K,V>, new()
    {
        T newMap = new T();
        foreach (IDictionary<K,V> src in
            (new List<IDictionary<K,V>> { me }).Concat(others)) {
            // ^-- echk. Not quite there type-system.
            foreach (KeyValuePair<K,V> p in src) {
                newMap[p.Key] = p.Value;
            }
        }
        return newMap;
    }

}

Solution 4:

The trivial solution would be:

using System.Collections.Generic;
...
public static Dictionary<TKey, TValue>
    Merge<TKey,TValue>(IEnumerable<Dictionary<TKey, TValue>> dictionaries)
{
    var result = new Dictionary<TKey, TValue>();
    foreach (var dict in dictionaries)
        foreach (var x in dict)
            result[x.Key] = x.Value;
    return result;
}

Solution 5:

Try the following

static Dictionary<TKey, TValue>
    Merge<TKey, TValue>(this IEnumerable<Dictionary<TKey, TValue>> enumerable)
{
    return enumerable.SelectMany(x => x).ToDictionary(x => x.Key, y => y.Value);
}