CodeDom and collection initializers

Question

Is there a way to generate a dictionary initializer using the C# CodeDom? Are those supported at all?

I would like to have:

private IDictionary<string, string> map = new Dictionary<string, string>
{
    { "Name", "Value" },
    ...
};

Rosana

Answer 1

This is not possible using the CodeDom constructs. They were not updated for collection initializers.

LukeH has an excellent blog post on the subject of 3.5 features and the CodeDom

• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/lukeh/archive/2007/07/11/c-3-0-and-codedom.aspx

Proposition

Was afraid that's the case... Thanks anyway! – Rosana

The blog post linked above explains that CodeDom was not updated for the "new" C# 3.0 features and gives an example of using CSharpCodeProvider.CompileAssemblyFromSource to compile a string of code containing a LINQ expression. – Shier

Answer 2

You can do it but its possibly the worst nightmare ever.. Here is how I am doing it currently. (Updated my answer to reflect the question)

var constructDictionary = new CodeMemberField("Dictionary<string, string> map", @" = new Dictionary<string, string>()
{
   { Name, Value },
}");

This can also be populated once again its hackish.

string builder += " = new Dictionary<string, string>(){";
for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
   builder+="{ Name"+i+", Value"+i+" }";
}
var constructDictionary = new CodeMemberField("Dictionary<string, string> map", builder+" }");

Plate