C# Multiple Keys to one Value

Question

I am looking for a C# container that can map multiple keys to a single object. For example: a single person can be referenced by his English name, or his Spanish name. I want to do this so that I don't have to create multiple copies of Dictionaries, and when I add/remove from the structure, I only have to add/remove once. Does such a structure exist?

Answer 1

Yes it exists: Dictionary<TKey, TValue>

There is no reason why you can't add a single object instance with multiple keys:

public class Person
{
    public string EnglishName { get; set; }
    public string SpanishName { get; set; }
}

public static class PersonDictExtensions
{
    public static void AddPerson(this IDictionary<string, Person> persons, Person person)
    {
        persons.Add(person.EnglishName, person);
        persons.Add(person.SpanishName, person);
    }

    public static void RemovePerson(this IDictionary<string, Person> persons, Person person)
    {
        foreach (var item in persons.Where(x => object.ReferenceEquals(x.Value, person)).ToList())
        {
            persons.Remove(item.Key);
        }
    }
}

var person = new Person { EnglishName = "Foo", SpanishName = "Bar" };
var dict = new Dictionary<string, Person>();
dict.AddPerson(person);
dict.RemovePerson(person);

EDIT Ups I understand: only one add and remove? Hm. Doesn't know that such a structure exists. Maybe you can add an extension method to handle that cases.

I changed the code...