How to Retrieve Multiple Keys Associated with a Specific Value in a Generic Dictionary?

Get multiple keys for a specific value in a generic dictionary

In .NET, retrieving the value associated with a key in a generic dictionary is very simple. However, determining the key of a given value is not easy, especially when multiple keys may correspond to the same value.

Question

Consider the following code snippet:

<code class="language-csharp">Dictionary<int, string> greek = new Dictionary<int, string>();
greek.Add(1, "Alpha");
greek.Add(2, "Beta");

int[] betaKeys = greek.WhatDoIPutHere("Beta"); // 预期结果为单个 2</code>

The goal is to get an array containing keys that map to the value "Beta".

Solution

We can create a custom two-way dictionary that is able to retrieve keys and values:

<code class="language-csharp">using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

class BiDictionary<TFirst, TSecond>
{
    private IDictionary<TFirst, IList<TSecond>> firstToSecond = new Dictionary<TFirst, IList<TSecond>>();
    private IDictionary<TSecond, IList<TFirst>> secondToFirst = new Dictionary<TSecond, IList<TFirst>>();

    public void Add(TFirst first, TSecond second)
    {
        IList<TSecond> seconds;
        IList<TFirst> firsts;

        if (!firstToSecond.TryGetValue(first, out seconds))
        {
            seconds = new List<TSecond>();
            firstToSecond[first] = seconds;
        }

        if (!secondToFirst.TryGetValue(second, out firsts))
        {
            firsts = new List<TFirst>();
            secondToFirst[second] = firsts;
        }

        seconds.Add(second);
        firsts.Add(first);
    }

    public IEnumerable<TSecond> GetByFirst(TFirst first)
    {
        IList<TSecond> list;
        return firstToSecond.TryGetValue(first, out list) ? list : Enumerable.Empty<TSecond>();
    }

    public IEnumerable<TFirst> GetBySecond(TSecond second)
    {
        IList<TFirst> list;
        return secondToFirst.TryGetValue(second, out list) ? list : Enumerable.Empty<TFirst>();
    }
}</code>

To use this two-way dictionary, we can replace the code in the previous example with:

<code class="language-csharp">BiDictionary<int, string> greek = new BiDictionary<int, string>();
greek.Add(1, "Alpha");
greek.Add(2, "Beta");
greek.Add(5, "Beta");

IEnumerable<int> betaKeys = greek.GetBySecond("Beta");

foreach (int key in betaKeys)
{
    Console.WriteLine(key); // 2, 5
}</code>

This solution effectively provides a way to retrieve all keys associated with a specified value in a multi-valued dictionary.

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