Clone a Dictionary in C#

This post will discuss how to clone a Dictionary<TKey,TValue> in C#.

1. Using `Dictionary<TKey,TValue>.ToDictionary()` Method

To get a copy of a dictionary with keys associated with their corresponding values, you can use LINQ’s ToDictionary() method, as demonstrated below:

using System;

using System.Linq;

using System.Collections.Generic;

public class Example

{

public static void Main()

{

Dictionary<string, string> dict = new Dictionary<string, string>();

dict.Add("White", "#FFFFFF");

dict.Add("Grey", "#808080");

dict.Add("Silver", "#C0C0C0");

dict.Add("Black", "#000000");

var dictCopy = dict.ToDictionary(entry => entry.Key, entry => entry.Value);

Console.WriteLine(String.Join(", ", dictCopy));

}

Download Run Code

Output:

[White, #FFFFFF], [Grey, #808080], [Silver, #C0C0C0], [Black, #000000]

The above version creates a shallow copy of dictionary values. If you need to create a to deep copy of Dictionary<TKey,TValue> values, you can have TValue implement ICloneable and invoke its Clone() method.

1	var dictCopy = dict.ToDictionary(entry => entry.Key, entry => (TValue) entry.Value.Clone());

2. Using `Dictionary<TKey,TValue>` Constructor

Alternatively, you can use the constructor of the Dictionary<TKey,TValue> class, which can take another instance of the same class and copy the object. The following example performs a shallow copy operation on dictionary values using its constructor.