I am wanting to create a 'dictionary' of strings, however I have only ever learned how to use strings to reference what I want in a dictionary. I want something with more auto-correct (as typos can happen in a large table of strings), which is why I want to know how to hard-code. (The value of the strings will be retrieved from a text file, like JSON).
I notice that Microsoft uses some type of hard-coding in their String Resource File.
So instead of doing:
string result = strings["Hello"];
I wish to do this:
string result = strings.Hello;
The only thing I can think of is to use some external tool that creates an enum/struct script with the values from the text file. Is there a better option, perhaps one built into .NET?
Edit: I think 'strongly-typed' would be a better description over 'hard-coded'.
Edit 2: Thanks for all the comments and answers. By the looks of it, some code-gen is required to fufil this result. I wonder if there's already any tools out there that do this for you (I tried looking but my terminology may be lacking). It doesn't seem too difficult to create this tool.
There are compiletime constants and runtime constants.
Your wish for Autocrrection/Intellisense support requires a compile time constants. Those are the only ones Intellisence, Syntax Highlighting and the Compiler double check for you.
But your requriement of having the values generated from a 3rd party textfile, indicates either a runtime constant or some automatic code generation. Runtime constants would take away the Editor support. While Code generation would run into issue with the Editor only having a old copy of the file. And a high risk of breaking tons of code if a string in that one file changes.
So your two requirements are inherently at odds. You need to have your cake and eat it too.
Perhaps my primitve solution to the Enum/ToString() problem might help you?
Enumeration are for most parts groups of constants, and integer ones by default. With added type checks on assignments. That makes them a good way around Primitive Obsession. You reference a value from the group like you would any constant, readonly static field or readonly property. (There is other advantages like Flags, but I doubt they mater here).
While Enums have a string you could use for display and input parsing - the one you use in sourcecode - that one is absolutely not suited for display. By default they are all-caps and you would need to support Localisation down the line. My primitive Solution was a translation layer. I add a Dictionary<someEnum, String> SomeEnumStringRepresentation. This dictionary can be generated and even changed at runtime:
SomeEnumLocalisation[someEnum]. I could add a default behavior to just ToString() the compiler representation of the Enum.