Lorentz' dev blog

This week I found a cool .net-class in the System.Collections.ObjectModel namespace; the class KeyedCollection<TKey,TItem>.

It provides a collection that can be indexed by a property. If your item-class has a natural key, all you have to do is derive from the abstract KeyedCollection-class and implement the GetKeyForItem method. It behaves pretty much like a mix between a dictionary and a list. Lookups are indexed by a key you can specify, which in turn is used as the key for an internal dictionary, and so are faster than searching a regular list.

It is documented further here.

public class SchoolClass : KeyedCollection<uint, Student>
{
    protected override uint GetKeyForItem(Student newStudent) => newStudent.Number;
}