Most elegant way to convert string array into a dictionary of strings

Question

Is there a built-in function for converting a string array into a dictionary of strings or do you need to do a loop here?

Answer 1

The Question is not very clear, but Yes you can convert a string to Dictionary provided the string is delimited with some characters to support Dictionary pair

So if a string is like a=first;b=second;c=third;d=fourth you can split it first based on ; then on = to create a Dictionary the below extension method does the same

public static Dictionary ToDictionary(this string stringData, char propertyDelimiter = ';', char keyValueDelimiter = '=')
{
    Dictionary keyValuePairs = new Dictionary();
    Array.ForEach(stringData.Split(propertyDelimiter), s =>
        {
            if(s != null && s.Length != 0)
                keyValuePairs.Add(s.Split(keyValueDelimiter)[0], s.Split(keyValueDelimiter)[1]);
        });

    return keyValuePairs;
}

and can use it like

var myDictionary = "a=first;b=second;c=third;d=fourth".ToDictionary();

since the default parameter is ; & = for the extension method.