Merging dictionaries in C#

Question

What's the best way to merge 2 or more dictionaries (Dictionary<T1,T2>) in C#? (3.0 features like LINQ are fine).

I'm thinking of a method signature along the lines of:

public static Dictionary<TKey,TValue>
                 Merge<TKey,TValue>(Dictionary<TKey,TValue>[] dictionaries);

or

public static Dictionary<TKey,TValue>
                 Merge<TKey,TValue>(IEnumerable<Dictionary<TKey,TValue>> dictionaries);

EDIT: Got a cool solution from JaredPar and Jon Skeet, but I was thinking of something that handles duplicate keys. In case of collision, it doesn't matter which value is saved to the dict as long as it's consistent.

Answer 1

Merging using an extension method. It does not throw exception when there are duplicate keys, but replaces those keys with keys from the second dictionary.

internal static class DictionaryExtensions
{
    public static Dictionary<T1, T2> Merge<T1, T2>(this Dictionary<T1, T2> first, Dictionary<T1, T2> second)
    {
        if (first == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("first");
        if (second == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("second");

        var merged = new Dictionary<T1, T2>();
        first.ToList().ForEach(kv => merged[kv.Key] = kv.Value);
        second.ToList().ForEach(kv => merged[kv.Key] = kv.Value);

        return merged;
    }
}

Usage:

Dictionary<string, string> merged = first.Merge(second);

Answer 2

The party's pretty much dead now, but here's an "improved" version of user166390 that made its way into my extension library. Apart from some details, I added a delegate to calculate the merged value.

/// <summary>
/// Merges a dictionary against an array of other dictionaries.
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="TResult">The type of the resulting dictionary.</typeparam>
/// <typeparam name="TKey">The type of the key in the resulting dictionary.</typeparam>
/// <typeparam name="TValue">The type of the value in the resulting dictionary.</typeparam>
/// <param name="source">The source dictionary.</param>
/// <param name="mergeBehavior">A delegate returning the merged value. (Parameters in order: The current key, The current value, The previous value)</param>
/// <param name="mergers">Dictionaries to merge against.</param>
/// <returns>The merged dictionary.</returns>
public static TResult MergeLeft<TResult, TKey, TValue>(
    this TResult source,
    Func<TKey, TValue, TValue, TValue> mergeBehavior,
    params IDictionary<TKey, TValue>[] mergers)
    where TResult : IDictionary<TKey, TValue>, new()
{
    var result = new TResult();
    var sources = new List<IDictionary<TKey, TValue>> { source }
        .Concat(mergers);

    foreach (var kv in sources.SelectMany(src => src))
    {
        TValue previousValue;
        result.TryGetValue(kv.Key, out previousValue);
        result[kv.Key] = mergeBehavior(kv.Key, kv.Value, previousValue);
    }

    return result;
}

Answer 3

I know this is an old question, but since we now have LINQ you can do it in a single line like this

Dictionary<T1,T2> merged;
Dictionary<T1,T2> mergee;
mergee.ToList().ForEach(kvp => merged.Add(kvp.Key, kvp.Value));

or

mergee.ToList().ForEach(kvp => merged.Append(kvp));

Answer 4

Based on the answers above, but adding a Func-parameter to let the caller handle the duplicates:

public static Dictionary<TKey, TValue> Merge<TKey, TValue>(this IEnumerable<Dictionary<TKey, TValue>> dicts, 
                                                           Func<IGrouping<TKey, TValue>, TValue> resolveDuplicates)
{
    if (resolveDuplicates == null)
        resolveDuplicates = new Func<IGrouping<TKey, TValue>, TValue>(group => group.First());

    return dicts.SelectMany<Dictionary<TKey, TValue>, KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue>>(dict => dict)
                .ToLookup(pair => pair.Key, pair => pair.Value)
                .ToDictionary(group => group.Key, group => resolveDuplicates(group));
}

Answer 5

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

public static class DictionaryExtensions
{
    public enum MergeKind { SkipDuplicates, OverwriteDuplicates }
    public static void Merge<K, V>(this IDictionary<K, V> target, IDictionary<K, V> source, MergeKind kind = MergeKind.SkipDuplicates) =>
        source.ToList().ForEach(_ => { if (kind == MergeKind.OverwriteDuplicates || !target.ContainsKey(_.Key)) target[_.Key] = _.Value; });
}

You can either skip/ignore (default) or overwrite the duplicates: And Bob's your uncle provided you are not overly fussy about Linq performance but prefer instead concise maintainable code as I do: in which case you can remove the default MergeKind.SkipDuplicates to enforce a choice for the caller and make the developer cognisant of what the results will be!

Answer 6

Here is a helper function I use:

using System.Collections.Generic;
namespace HelperMethods
{
    public static class MergeDictionaries
    {
        public static void Merge<TKey, TValue>(this IDictionary<TKey, TValue> first, IDictionary<TKey, TValue> second)
        {
            if (second == null || first == null) return;
            foreach (var item in second) 
                if (!first.ContainsKey(item.Key)) 
                    first.Add(item.Key, item.Value);
        }
    }
}