[RESOLVED] Composite key with class collection

[wild_bill]

I want to be able to get an instance of a class based on two fields in that class. I was hoping to use something like a dictionary, because I thought indexing would be the best for performance. Should I just use LINQ or go back to a strongly typed dataset? Here's an example of what I'm trying to do:

Dim n As New Name("wild", "bill")

Dim dict As New Dictionary(Of String(), Name)
dict.Add(New String() {"wild", "bill"}, n)

Dim key() = New String() {"wild", "bill"}
Debug.WriteLine(dict.ContainsKey(key)) 'false

...

Public Class Name
    Public FirstName As String
    Public LastName As String
    Public NameCount As Integer

    Public Sub New(ByVal first As String, ByVal last As String)
        Me.FirstName = first
        Me.LastName = last
    End Sub
End Class

[jmcilhinney]

Using a Dictionary would probably perform better but that would only really be a benefit if you are accessing the collection a lot or it is very large. If you are going to use a Dictionary then I would suggest against using a String array as the key. I would suggest defining a type specifically for the purpose with two String properties and its own GetHashCode function override based on those two properties.

A simpler option would be to just use a List and a LINQ query, e.g.

Dim name = names.FirstOrDefault(Function(n) n.FirstName = firstName AndAlso n.LastName = lastName)

[wild_bill]

Thanks for the input, I went ahead and used LINQ. My collection will typically never be over 1,000 items.