Using many dictionaries within dictionaries in my code

Question

I'm using a lot of dictionary collections that contain other dictionary collections like:

Dictionary<Guid, List<string>>()

Dictionary<Guid, Dictionary<Guid, List<string>>>()

I'm looping through these maps, and passing them around in parameters in my code.

This seems like a bad idea since you can't really extend the nature of these collections now.

Should I wrap these around in a class?

Answer 1

Do you run into such limitations? Is your program hard to alter/debug? If so, refactor. Otherwise, profit: you're a pragmatic programmer,.

That said, I can see room for immediate improvement:

IDictionary<Guid, List<string>> x;

IDictionary<Guid, IDictionary<Guid, List<string>> y = new Dictionary<Guid, IDictionary<Guid, List<string>>();

Answer 2

I'd say yes, create a class specifically for it. Then you can add/not-implement methods as per your usage, rather than working around any limitations you find with Dictionary with your usage.

It sounds like you'd want a tree-like structure.