How to iterate over a dictionary?

foreach(KeyValuePair<string, string> entry in myDictionary)
{
    // do something with entry.Value or entry.Key
}

If you are trying to use a generic Dictionary in C# like you would use an associative array in another language:

foreach(var item in myDictionary)
{
  foo(item.Key);
  bar(item.Value);
}

Or, if you only need to iterate over the collection of keys, use

foreach(var item in myDictionary.Keys)
{
  foo(item);
}

And lastly, if you're only interested in the values:

foreach(var item in myDictionary.Values)
{
  foo(item);
}

(Take note that the var keyword is an optional C# 3.0 and above feature, you could also use the exact type of your keys/values here)

Depends on whether you're after the keys or the values...

From the MSDN Dictionary(TKey, TValue) Class description:

// When you use foreach to enumerate dictionary elements,
// the elements are retrieved as KeyValuePair objects.
Console.WriteLine();
foreach( KeyValuePair<string, string> kvp in openWith )
{
    Console.WriteLine("Key = {0}, Value = {1}", 
        kvp.Key, kvp.Value);
}

// To get the values alone, use the Values property.
Dictionary<string, string>.ValueCollection valueColl =
    openWith.Values;

// The elements of the ValueCollection are strongly typed
// with the type that was specified for dictionary values.
Console.WriteLine();
foreach( string s in valueColl )
{
    Console.WriteLine("Value = {0}", s);
}

// To get the keys alone, use the Keys property.
Dictionary<string, string>.KeyCollection keyColl =
    openWith.Keys;

// The elements of the KeyCollection are strongly typed
// with the type that was specified for dictionary keys.
Console.WriteLine();
foreach( string s in keyColl )
{
    Console.WriteLine("Key = {0}", s);
}

C# 7.0 introduced Deconstructors and if you are using .NET Core 2.0+ Application, the struct KeyValuePair<> already include a Deconstruct() for you. So you can do:

var dic = new Dictionary<int, string>() { { 1, "One" }, { 2, "Two" }, { 3, "Three" } };
foreach (var (key, value) in dic) {
    Console.WriteLine($"Item [{key}] = {value}");
}
//Or
foreach (var (_, value) in dic) {
    Console.WriteLine($"Item [NO_ID] = {value}");
}
//Or
foreach ((int key, string value) in dic) {
    Console.WriteLine($"Item [{key}] = {value}");
}

I would say foreach is the standard way, though it obviously depends on what you're looking for

foreach(var kvp in my_dictionary) {
  ...
}

Is that what you're looking for?

As already pointed out on this answer, KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue> implements a Deconstruct method starting on .NET Core 2.0, .NET Standard 2.1 and .NET Framework 5.0 (preview).

With this, it's possible to iterate through a dictionary in a KeyValuePair agnostic way:

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

// ...

foreach (var (key, value) in dictionary)
{
    // ...
}

There are plenty of options. My personal favorite is by KeyValuePair

Dictionary<string, object> myDictionary = new Dictionary<string, object>();
// Populate your dictionary here

foreach (KeyValuePair<string,object> kvp in myDictionary)
{
     // Do some interesting things
}

You can also use the Keys and Values Collections

With .NET Framework 4.7 one can use decomposition

var fruits = new Dictionary<string, int>();
...
foreach (var (fruit, number) in fruits)
{
    Console.WriteLine(fruit + ": " + number);
}

To make this code work on lower C# versions, add System.ValueTuple NuGet package and write somewhere

public static class MyExtensions
{
    public static void Deconstruct<T1, T2>(this KeyValuePair<T1, T2> tuple,
        out T1 key, out T2 value)
    {
        key = tuple.Key;
        value = tuple.Value;
    }
}

As of C# 7, you can deconstruct objects into variables. I believe this to be the best way to iterate over a dictionary.

Example:

Create an extension method on KeyValuePair<TKey, TVal> that deconstructs it:

public static void Deconstruct<TKey, TVal>(this KeyValuePair<TKey, TVal> pair, out TKey key, out TVal value)
{
   key = pair.Key;
   value = pair.Value;
}

Iterate over any Dictionary<TKey, TVal> in the following manner

// Dictionary can be of any types, just using 'int' and 'string' as examples.
Dictionary<int, string> dict = new Dictionary<int, string>();

// Deconstructor gets called here.
foreach (var (key, value) in dict)
{
   Console.WriteLine($"{key} : {value}");
}

foreach is fastest and if you only iterate over ___.Values, it is also faster

Simplest form to iterate a dictionary:

foreach(var item in myDictionary)
{ 
    Console.WriteLine(item.Key);
    Console.WriteLine(item.Value);
}

Using C# 7, add this extension method to any project of your solution:

public static class IDictionaryExtensions
{
    public static IEnumerable<(TKey, TValue)> Tuples<TKey, TValue>(
        this IDictionary<TKey, TValue> dict)
    {
        foreach (KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue> kvp in dict)
            yield return (kvp.Key, kvp.Value);
    }
}

And use this simple syntax

foreach (var(id, value) in dict.Tuples())
{
    // your code using 'id' and 'value'
}

Or this one, if you prefer

foreach ((string id, object value) in dict.Tuples())
{
    // your code using 'id' and 'value'
}

In place of the traditional

foreach (KeyValuePair<string, object> kvp in dict)
{
    string id = kvp.Key;
    object value = kvp.Value;

    // your code using 'id' and 'value'
}

The extension method transforms the KeyValuePair of your IDictionary<TKey, TValue> into a strongly typed tuple, allowing you to use this new comfortable syntax.

It converts -just- the required dictionary entries to tuples, so it does NOT converts the whole dictionary to tuples, so there are no performance concerns related to that.

There is a only minor cost calling the extension method for creating a tuple in comparison with using the KeyValuePair directly, which should NOT be an issue if you are assigning the KeyValuePair's properties Key and Value to new loop variables anyway.

In practice, this new syntax suits very well for most cases, except for low-level ultra-high performance scenarios, where you still have the option to simply not use it on that specific spot.

Check this out: MSDN Blog - New features in C# 7

I found this method in the documentation for the DictionaryBase class on MSDN:

foreach (DictionaryEntry de in myDictionary)
{
     //Do some stuff with de.Value or de.Key
}

This was the only one I was able to get functioning correctly in a class that inherited from the DictionaryBase.

I know this is a very old question, but I created some extension methods that might be useful:

    public static void ForEach<T, U>(this Dictionary<T, U> d, Action<KeyValuePair<T, U>> a)
    {
        foreach (KeyValuePair<T, U> p in d) { a(p); }
    }

    public static void ForEach<T, U>(this Dictionary<T, U>.KeyCollection k, Action<T> a)
    {
        foreach (T t in k) { a(t); }
    }

    public static void ForEach<T, U>(this Dictionary<T, U>.ValueCollection v, Action<U> a)
    {
        foreach (U u in v) { a(u); }
    }

This way I can write code like this:

myDictionary.ForEach(pair => Console.Write($"key: {pair.Key}, value: {pair.Value}"));
myDictionary.Keys.ForEach(key => Console.Write(key););
myDictionary.Values.ForEach(value => Console.Write(value););

If you want to use for loop, you can do this:

var keyList=new List<string>(dictionary.Keys);
for (int i = 0; i < keyList.Count; i++)
{
   var key= keyList[i];
   var value = dictionary[key];
 }

I wrote an extension to loop over a dictionary.

public static class DictionaryExtension
{
    public static void ForEach<T1, T2>(this Dictionary<T1, T2> dictionary, Action<T1, T2> action) {
        foreach(KeyValuePair<T1, T2> keyValue in dictionary) {
            action(keyValue.Key, keyValue.Value);
        }
    }
}

Then you can call

myDictionary.ForEach((x,y) => Console.WriteLine(x + " - " + y));

If say, you want to iterate over the values collection by default, I believe you can implement IEnumerable<>, Where T is the type of the values object in the dictionary, and "this" is a Dictionary.

public new IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator()
{
   return this.Values.GetEnumerator();
}

The best answer is of course: Think, if you could use a more appropriate data structure than a dictionary if you plan to iterate over it- as Vikas Gupta mentioned already in the (beginning of the) discussion under the question. But that discussion as this whole thread still lacks surprisingly good alternatives. One is:

SortedList<string, string> x = new SortedList<string, string>();

x.Add("key1", "value1");
x.Add("key2", "value2");
x["key3"] = "value3";
foreach( KeyValuePair<string, string> kvPair in x )
            Console.WriteLine($"{kvPair.Key}, {kvPair.Value}");

Why it could be argued a code smell of iterating over a dictionary (e.g. by foreach(KeyValuePair<,>) ?

A basic principle of Clean Coding: "Express intent!" Robert C. Martin writes in "Clean Code": "Choosing names that reveal intent". Obviously naming alone is too weak. "Express (reveal) intent with every coding decision" expresses it better.

A related principle is "Principle of least surprise" (=Principle of Least Astonishment).

Why this is related to iterating over a dictionary? Choosing a dictionary expresses the intent of choosing a data structure which was made for primarily finding data by key. Nowadays there are so much alternatives in .NET, if you want to iterate through key/value pairs that you could choose something else.

Moreover: If you iterate over something, you have to reveal something about how the items are (to be) ordered and expected to be ordered! Although the known implementations of Dictionary sort the key collection in the order of the items added- AFAIK, Dictionary has no assured specification about ordering (has it?).

But what are the alternatives?

TLDR:
SortedList: If your collection is not getting too large, a simple solution would be to use SortedList<,> which gives you also full indexing of key/value pairs.

Microsoft has a long article about mentioning and explaining fitting collections:
Keyed collection

To mention the most important: KeyedCollection<,> and SortedDictionary<,> . SortedDictionary<,> is a bit faster than SortedList for only inserting if it gets large, but lacks indexing and is needed only if O(log n) for inserting is preferenced over other operations. If you really need O(1) for inserting and accept slower iterating in exchange, you have to stay with simple Dictionary<,>. Obviously there is no data structure which is the fastest for every possible operation..

Additionally there is ImmutableSortedDictionary<,>.

And if one data structure is not exactly what you need, then derivate from Dictionary<,> or even from the new ConcurrentDictionary<,> and add explicit iteration/sorting functions!

in addition to the highest ranking posts where there is a discussion between using

foreach(KeyValuePair<string, string> entry in myDictionary)
{
    // do something with entry.Value or entry.Key
}

or

foreach(var entry in myDictionary)
{
    // do something with entry.Value or entry.Key
}

most complete is the following because you can see the dictionary type from the initialization, kvp is KeyValuePair

var myDictionary = new Dictionary<string, string>(x);//fill dictionary with x

foreach(var kvp in myDictionary)//iterate over dictionary
{
    // do something with kvp.Value or kvp.Key
}