Good way to get the key of the highest value of a Dictionary in C#

Question

I\'m trying to get the key of the maximum value in the Dictionary results.

This is what I have so far:

double max          


        

Answer 1

How about doing it in parallel using Interlocked.Exchange for thread safety :) Keep in mind that Interlocked.Exchange will only work with a reference type.(i.e. a struct or key value pair (unless wrapped in a class) will not work to hold the max value.

Here's an example from my own code:

//Parallel O(n) solution for finding max kvp in a dictionary...
ClassificationResult maxValue = new ClassificationResult(-1,-1,double.MinValue);
Parallel.ForEach(pTotals, pTotal =>
{
    if(pTotal.Value > maxValue.score)
    {
        Interlocked.Exchange(ref maxValue, new                
            ClassificationResult(mhSet.sequenceId,pTotal.Key,pTotal.Value)); 
    }
});

EDIT (Updated code to avoid possible race condition above):

Here's a more robust pattern which also shows selecting a min value in parallel. I think this addresses the concerns mentioned in the comments below regarding a possible race condition:

int minVal = int.MaxValue;
Parallel.ForEach(dictionary.Values, curVal =>
{
  int oldVal = Volatile.Read(ref minVal);
  //val can equal anything but the oldVal
  int val = ~oldVal;

  //Keep trying the atomic update until we are sure that either:
  //1. CompareExchange successfully changed the value.
  //2. Another thread has updated minVal with a smaller number than curVal.
  //   (in the case of #2, the update is no longer needed)
  while (oldval > curVal && oldval != val)
  {
    val = oldval;
    oldval = Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref minVal, curVal, oldval);
  }
});