<p>Is it possible to create and initialise a <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6918612z(VS.80).aspx" rel="noreferrer"><code>System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary</code></a> object with String key/value pairs in one statement?</p>

<p>I'm thinking along the lines of the constructor for an array of Strings..</p>

<p>e.g.</p>

<pre><code>Private mStringArray As String() = {"String1", "String2", "etc"}
</code></pre>

<p>In case this is turns out to be a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_sugar" rel="noreferrer">syntactic sugar</a> kind of thing, I'd prefer an answer that I can use in .Net 2.0 (Visual Studio 2005), and Visual Basic - though I'm curious if it's possible at all so don't let that put you off ;o)</p>

Try this syntax:
```
```
Dictionary<string, double> dict = new Dictionary<string, double>()
{
  { "pi", 3.14},
  { "e", 2.71 }
 };
```
```
But that may require C# 3 (.NET 3.5)