Thank you very much for the solution. Dictionary is probably what I needed. Now it's only up to me to figure out the logic for the rest of the calculations.

Dictionary works as it should when I add more lines manually, but obviously, I have to get the number of lines from a foreach loop, and I have not figured out yet. Is this where you use ToDictionary?

Hi

you should be able to use a dictonary directly in a foreach,

e.g

var myDictionary = new Dictionary<string, int>();

// ... add items 

foreach(var item in myDictionary) 
{
   // item is a now KeyValuePair
   // item.Key - will be a string
   // item.Value - will be an int
}

What is meant by // ... add items here?

The foreach loop is the lookup from a database table that is still growing

foreach (HikingDestinationViewModel hikingDestination in allHikingDestinations)
{
    //   Codes
}

sorry that was just an example of the loop.

if you are passing the dictionary back from the Controller (like the post below) then it should look like this in the razor:

@foreach(var item in Model.Visits)  
{
    // item.Key will be the name 
    // item.Value will be the points
}

because your dictionary is Model.Visits ?

I get all my hiking destination data from this database table:

IEnumerable<HikingDestinationViewModel> allHikingDestinations = HikingDestinations.GetAll();

This is from the repository where the data in HikingDestinations above are selected:

public static IList<HikingDestinationViewModel> GetAll()
{
    UmbracoDatabase db = Umbraco.Core.ApplicationContext.Current.DatabaseContext.Database;
    return db.Fetch<HikingDestinationViewModel>("SELECT * FROM HikingDestinations ORDER BY StartDate");
}

and this from the foreach loop in the surfacecontroller:

HikingDestinationViewModel model = new HikingDestinationViewModel();
model.Visits = new Dictionary<string, int>();
int points = 0;
foreach (HikingDestinationViewModel hikingDestination in allHikingDestinations)
{
    //Some untested calculations here
    //model.Visits.Add("John Doe", 1)  <<= not working when looping more than 1 time
}
//model.Visits.Add("John Doe", 1)  <<= working, but manual assignment can't be used

And my model HikingDestinationViewModel is where public Dictionary<string, int> Visits { get; set; } also is defined, so I still working to find out how to connect this.

It fails even with one of this model.Visits.Add("John Doe", 1); inside the foreach loop if looping more than 1 times, but it work outside of the loop - even if adding model.Visits.Add("John Doe", 1) more than 1 time.

Hi

Dictionary Keys have to be unique so it's possible it fails if the string is the same more than once?

if that's possible then you either need to check

if (!Model.Visits.ContainsKey(name)) {
   Model.Visits.Add(name, points);
}

or use a List and a model so you can have multiple values.

Model.Visits = new List<VisitInfo>();

Model.Visits.Add(new VisitInfo { Name = name, Point = points });

// info for the list
public class VisitInfo {
  public string Name {get;set;}
  public string Points {get;set;}
}

Yes that is correct. I just figure out that an error message came when the key was not unique, so I've used the dictonary in the wrong way. (the number of visits can't be unique).

Well, then there will be a longer break here, but before I go: What's the Model.Visits in your example? Which of my models is this thought taken from (see the example below)? model.Visits = new List<VisitInfo>(); gives me an error (cant convert... etc, and I use small m in model).

Thanks in advance for any response that may come.

Hi yeah

i think the Model.Visits would be from HikingDestinationViewModel

so if you can you would need to change the definition of the HikingDestinationViewModel Visits property in the class

From something like

Dictionary<string, int>Visits  {get;set} 

To

List<VisitInfo>() Visits {get;set;}

Yes, it look like that makes sense. I give feedback when I've finally returned to the office to test the modification of HikingDestinationViewModel. Thanks.

Yes, this works excellent. Now that the VisitInfo class can receive all kinds of numbers, not just unique, printing works as intended. Then only the actual calculations remain. Thank you for your help.