Help with Dictionary()

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

I need help getting this to work. I've got a dictionary object that I need to contain 57 items in. Each item is an int/string pair with the int being an identifier to the string. I'm putting the dictionary in a seperate class file so I don't bloat my main program with too many extra lines of code. I don't want to have any extra files for the user to download.

Since I'm doing it in a class file, I'm trying to simply assign the values to the dictionary like this:

Dictionary<int, string> data = new Dictionary<int, string>()
{
    myInt, myString
};

The problem is, I don't know how to assign the values into the dictionary using that method. I would rather stay away from making a method just to populate the dictionary if I can do it this way.

Also, I'm not completely 100% decided on using a dictionary anyway. I basically want an associative array. In PHP this would be easy, since I can have an associative array, but C# makes it difficult.

Can anyone please help me figure this out? If I do go with a dictionary, how would I provide an integer and return the string it's associated with?

Finally, is a Dictionary or a Hashtable better for something like this?

[Plater]

There is no constructor that takes a series of data as parameters.
You could make your own class that inherits from Dictionary maybe and have a constructor that does it?

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

Maybe I'm misunnderstandi ng the terminology here, but I'm not trying to pass them at parameters, I'm trying to do something similar to a list:

List<int> myList = new List<int>() { 1, 2, 3};

But with a dictionary.

Regardless, I ended up writing a method to add them all, then another method to read the string back into my main program. It works and it's fast. I'd still like to find a more elegant solution though.

[Plater]

That is an implicit constructor when you do that, its part of the Array class. I don't think that applies to a dictionary, but I could be wrong.

[ryuk]

You can't do that.
Instead of that way..

Dictionary<int, string> data = new Dictionary<int, string>()
{
    { myInt, myString },
    { 1, string.Empty },
   { 2, null },
   { 3, "" }
};