A couple of weeks ago, I posted a new learning “Ever depended on the order of elements in a HybridDictionary?”.  It was then pointed out to me by Steve Maine that the typical hashtable implementation shouldn’t return a ordered list of any type.  After some skillful assistance by Dan Fox, he found that one can get a sorted return if integer keys are used instead of string keys.  During my learning lesson, I did use integer keys (which works).  But when I typed up an example for the blog using string keys, I assumed that this would work the same way.  It does not.  Here are the results of the sample below:

 

String keys

2 = 915793710

3 = 306194301

1 = 821758039

6 = 2073203188

7 = 127676433

4 = 836905414

5 = 218444477

8 = 1218696123

9 = 975467952

10 = 610848541

 

Integer keys

10 = 610848541

9 = 975467952

8 = 1218696123

7 = 127676433

6 = 2073203188

5 = 218444477

4 = 836905414

3 = 306194301

2 = 915793710

1 = 821758039

 

Here is the sample:

 

    Sub Main(ByVal args As String())

        Dim r As New Random(13123123)

        Dim c As New HybridDictionary

        Dim i As Integer

 

        If args.Length = 0 Then

            Console.WriteLine("Cmd Line Args: 0-string key, 1-integer key")

        Else

            'Show key type

            If args(0) = "0" Then

                Console.WriteLine("String keys")

            Else

                Console.WriteLine("Integer keys")

            End If

 

            'Add to dictionary

            For i = 1 To 50

                If args(0) = "0" Then

                    c.Add(CStr(i), r.Next)

                Else

                    c.Add(i, r.Next)

                End If

            Next

        End If

 

        'Print out list

        Dim e As DictionaryEntry

        For Each e In c

            Console.WriteLine(e.Key & " = " & e.Value)

        Next

 

    End Sub