Why do we prefer Dictionary over Hashtable in C#?
Why do we prefer Dictionary over Hashtable in C#?
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Aryan Kumar
13-Jul-2023There are a few reasons why we prefer
Dictionary
overHashtable
in C#:Dictionary
is a strongly typed collection, which means that the type of the key and value must be specified when theDictionary
is created. This prevents errors from occurring when you try to add or retrieve elements from theDictionary
.Hashtable
is a weakly typed collection, which means that the type of the key and value can be anything. This can lead to errors if you try to add or retrieve elements of the wrong type.Dictionary
is generally faster thanHashtable
because it does not require boxing and unboxing of the keys and values. Boxing and unboxing is a process that converts value types to reference types and vice versa. This can be a performance bottleneck, especially when you are working with large collections.Dictionary
provides a number of features thatHashtable
does not, such as the ability to iterate over the keys and values in a specific order, and the ability to check if a key exists in theDictionary
without actually retrieving the value.In general, you should use
Dictionary
instead ofHashtable
unless you have a specific reason to useHashtable
.Here is a table that summarizes the key differences between
Dictionary
andHashtable
:Dictionary
Hashtable