Handling Duplicate Entries in a C# Dictionary While Merging Data from Multiple Sources
Can someone help me understand I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer... I've been banging my head against this for hours... I'm currently trying to merge data from multiple sources into a single `Dictionary<string, List<string>>` in C#. The challenge I'm facing is how to handle duplicate keys when the same key might appear in multiple sources with different values. My current approach is to simply overwrite the existing entry, but I realize that I'm losing valuable data. Here's a snippet of how I'm merging the dictionaries: ```csharp var mergedData = new Dictionary<string, List<string>>(); foreach (var source in dataSources) { foreach (var entry in source) { if (mergedData.ContainsKey(entry.Key)) { mergedData[entry.Key].AddRange(entry.Value); } else { mergedData[entry.Key] = new List<string>(entry.Value); } } } ``` This code merges the lists corresponding to duplicate keys, but I'm concerned about potential duplicates within the lists themselves. I want to ensure that the final merged lists do not contain any duplicate values. I've considered using a `HashSet<string>` for values to avoid duplicates in the lists, but I'm not sure how to integrate that into my current structure without complicating things too much. What would be the best way to merge these lists and ensure that they are free from duplicates while still maintaining the original data from all sources? Any insights or examples would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger service I'm building. Thanks in advance! Any help would be greatly appreciated! The stack includes C# and several other technologies. I appreciate any insights!