Will I need a recursive function to iterate through a Dictionary<String, Object> of Dictionary<String, Object>s?

Question

And there could be many levels, who knows how deep it could go! Also let's say for this specific question that the String for another Dictionary will be "Dictionary" and a value that I want to access/modify will be "Data".

Answer 1

Basically, yes. You'd have to test each value against the types you're willing to iterate through, by casting them with as.

Answer 2

I am going to have to go with "yes" this would be the quickest and easiest to write. something like this....

string WalkIt( Dictionary<string,object> data )
{
    if ( data == null ) yield return null;

    foreach (KeyValuePair<string, object> kvp in data)
    {
        if (kvp.Value is string)
        {
            yield return kvp.Value;
        }

        if (kvp.Value is Dictionary<string, object>)
        {
            foreach( string str in walk(kvp.Value as Dictionary<string, object>))
                 yield return str;
        }
            }
        }
       yield return null;
}

Answer 3

Recursion is generally the most code-efficient way to traverse a tree structure of unknown depth. Is there some reason you can't use recursion? It sounds as if you're looking for some other option as if a recursive algorithm doesn't meet some requirement.

Answer 4

It's not essential to recurse. You can do this using Linq as shown by concrete extension methods to make virtually any tree searchable by Linq.