Store dictionary in database (vb.net)

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Hello,

I've another challenge ahead.

I want to save a "dictionary" in a database in a efficient way. PHP uses a serialize() function, is there something similar available in vb.net?

The idea is to have a dictionary containing a string and a boolean defined like:

VB

Dim user_settings As New Dictionary(Of String, Boolean)

I've searched the internet to find some information but I can't find a good solution.

One approach is to make a foreach loop converting each item into a string. (and vice versa). But it's a quite inefficient way I think?

Thanks!

Posted 28-Sep-11 6:35am

ArjanKempes

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3 solutions

Solution 1

Take a look at my article fastJSON for serializing data like Dictionary of strings etc.

Also you can use RaptorDB which is a disk based Dictionary of anything.

Posted 28-Sep-11 6:42am

Mehdi Gholam

Solution 3

A database table essentially IS a dictionary. Create a table with one column, SettingName (perhaps use a type of varchar(100)), and another column, SettingValue (maybe use a bit field). Add an index to SettingName. Insert each key/value pair in the dictionary as a row in the table.

Posted 30-Sep-11 12:50pm

AspDotNetDev

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ArjanKempes · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-30T09:18:00

After a few more hours I made this:

VB

' convert Dictionary to a string
Dim arr1() = dictionary1.ToArray()
Dim dataString As String = String.Join("", arr1).Replace(", ", "=")


' convert string to a Dictionary
Dim arr2() As String = dataString.Split({"["c, "]"c}, _
      StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
Dim dictionary2 = arr2.Select(Function(x) x.Split("="c)).ToDictionary(Function(i) _
      i(0), Function(i) Boolean.Parse(i(1)))

For me it's working...

Thanks!