Convert string to List<string> in one line?

Question

I have a string:

var names = "Brian,Joe,Chris";

Is there a way to convert this to a List<string> delimited by , in one line?

Solution 1

List<string> result = names.Split(new char[] { ',' }).ToList();

Or even cleaner by Dan's suggestion:

List<string> result = names.Split(',').ToList();

Solution 2

The List<T> has a constructor that accepts an IEnumerable<T>:

List<string> listOfNames = new List<string>(names.Split(','));

Solution 3

I prefer this because it prevents a single item list with an empty item if your source string is empty:

  IEnumerable<string> namesList = 
      !string.isNullOrEmpty(names) ? names.Split(',') : Enumerable.Empty<string>();

Solution 4

Use Split() function to slice them and ToList() to return them as a list.

var names = "Brian,Joe,Chris";
List<string> nameList = names.Split(',').ToList();

Solution 5

Split a string delimited by characters and return all non-empty elements.

var names = ",Brian,Joe,Chris,,,";
var charSeparator = ",";
var result = names.Split(charSeparator, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.string.split?view=netframework-4.8

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Comments

[Dan Tao]

You may have put it there on purpose, but I always leave out the whole new char[] { } part. It's more readable that way, to me at least.

[Matt Greer]

@Dan: I agree, and generally I do use the params overload. But for an answer to a question sometimes I feel like verbosity is better. Just a matter of opinion really.

[Gina Marano]

ToList() doesn't seem to be avail anymore?

[Matt Greer]

Did you bring in the System.LINQ namespace?

[VictorySaber]

Excellent - no need to import System.Linq