Key value pairs in C# Params

Question

I'm looking for a way to have a function such as:

myFunction({"Key", value}, {"Key2", value}); 

I'm sure there's something with anonymous types that would be pretty easy, but I'm not seeing it.

The only solution I can think of is to have a params KeyValuePair<String, object>[] pairs parameter, but that ends up being something similar to:

myFunction(new KeyValuePair<String, object>("Key", value),            new KeyValuePair<String, object>("Key2", value)); 

Which is, admittedly, much uglier.

EDIT:

To clarify, I'm writing a Message class to pass between 2 different systems. It contains a ushort specifying the the Message Type, and a dictionary of string to object for "Data" associated with the message. I'd like to be able to pass all this information in the constructor, so I am able to do this:

Agent.SendMessage(new Message(MessageTypes.SomethingHappened, "A", x, "B", y, "C", z)); 

or similar syntax.

Answer 1

When the syntax is bad for an otherwise decent pattern, change the syntax. How about:

public void MyFunction(params KeyValuePair<string, object>[] pairs) {     // ... }  public static class Pairing {     public static KeyValuePair<string, object> Of(string key, object value)     {         return new KeyValuePair<string, object>(key, value);     } } 

Usage:

MyFunction(Pairing.Of("Key1", 5), Pairing.Of("Key2", someObject)); 

Even more interesting would be to add an extension method to string to make it pairable:

public static KeyValuePair<string, object> PairedWith(this string key, object value) {     return new KeyValuePair<string, object>(key, value); } 

Usage:

MyFunction("Key1".PairedWith(5), "Key2".PairedWith(someObject)); 

Edit: You can also use the dictionary syntax without the generic brackets by deriving from Dictionary<,>:

public void MyFunction(MessageArgs args) {     // ... }  public class MessageArgs : Dictionary<string, object> {} 

Usage:

MyFunction(new MessageArgs { { "Key1", 5 }, { "Key2", someObject } });