In today's insightful lesson, we will delve into a cornerstone of C#'s Data Structure ecosystem, the Dictionary. Building upon our understanding of HashSets from previous lessons, this session introduces you to the Dictionary, a powerful structure that stores key-value pairs. This setup makes the Dictionary an ideal choice when swift data access through keys is necessary.
Dictionaries utilize the principle of hashing, which enables constant time complexity for several core operations, thereby enhancing their efficiency. By the end of this lesson, you will have gained practical knowledge of creating, manipulating, and understanding the workings of Dictionaries, including their implementation and complexity in handling data.
Before we commence, let's formally define a Dictionary. A Dictionary in the world of C# is a collection that stores key-value pairs grouped by a hash code computed from the key. This means that Dictionaries ensure each key is unique and efficiently manage these pairs. Dictionaries do not guarantee any specific order for the stored pairs; in other words, the order can change over time.
Dictionaries function using the principle of . Here, a key is rendered to a hash code by a hash function, and this numeric code identifies the storage location for the key-value pair. Let's visualize a simple creation of a :
