Can I use dot notation for accessing dictionary values?

Question

I'm using Dictionary<string, string> as configuration for instruments, and it'd be easier for my users who don't know a lot about programming to be able to get autocomplete from Visual Studio.

In Python I can make a Dictionary and access the different values with a dot operator.

d = {'name':'Joe', 'mood':'grumpy'}
d.name
d.mood

Does C# have a way to do this?

I realize all of the problems involved since dictionary is a just a generic collection (how generic? is it just a list of KeyValuePairs? interesting question). I'm not about to write a wrapper class for this to accomplish it (I'd like it to be a bit more flexible than using explicit properties with a custom class).

Answer 1

You can already do that in C# with anonymous types:

var d = new { name = "Joe", mood = "grumpy"};
d.name
d.mood

Or real types:

var d = new Person { Name = "Joe", Mood = "grumpy"};
d.Name
d.Mood

And, in C# 4.0 we will have the DLR which will allow adding properties at runtime using the ExpandoObject:

dynamic d = new ExpandoObject();
d.name = "Joe";
d.mood = "grumpy";

However, I'm not sure that you can do IntelliSense using static analysis in C#.

The closest C# equivalent to what you have is

var d = new Dictionary<string, string>()
    { { "name", "Joe" }, { "mood", "grumpy" } };
d["name"]
d["mood"]

Which will not support IntelliSense.

If you are making an API, I would use real types.