What is the point of Lookup<TKey, TElement>?

Question

The MSDN explains Lookup like this:

A Lookup<TKey, TElement> resembles a Dictionary<TKey, TValue>. The difference is that a Dictionary<TKey, TValue> maps keys to single values, whereas a Lookup<TKey, TElement> maps keys to collections of values.

I don't find that explanation particularly helpful. What is Lookup used for?

Answer 1

It's a cross between an IGrouping and a dictionary. It lets you group items together by a key, but then access them via that key in an efficient manner (rather than just iterating over them all, which is what GroupBy lets you do).

For example, you could take a load of .NET types and build a lookup by namespace... then get to all the types in a particular namespace very easily:

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

public class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // Just types covering some different assemblies
        Type[] sampleTypes = new[] { typeof(List<>), typeof(string), 
                                     typeof(Enumerable), typeof(XmlReader) };

        // All the types in those assemblies
        IEnumerable<Type> allTypes = sampleTypes.Select(t => t.Assembly)
                                               .SelectMany(a => a.GetTypes());

        // Grouped by namespace, but indexable
        ILookup<string, Type> lookup = allTypes.ToLookup(t => t.Namespace);

        foreach (Type type in lookup["System"])
        {
            Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", 
                              type.FullName, type.Assembly.GetName().Name);
        }
    }
}

(I'd normally use var for most of these declarations, in normal code.)