If I have an array and perform a ToString() does that just string together the array values in one long comma seperated string or is that not possible on an array?
6 Answers
Option 1
If you have an array of strings, then you can use String.Join:
string[] values = ...;
string concatenated = string.Join(",", values);Option 2
If you're dealing with an array of any other type and you're using .NET 3.5 or above, you can use LINQ:
string concatenated = string.Join(",", values.Select(x => x.ToString()).ToArray());You can certainly do that, but it's not the default behaviour. The easiest way to do that (from .NET 3.5 anyway) is probably:
string joined = string.Join(",", array.Select(x => x.ToString()).ToArray());MoreLINQ has a built-in method to do this:
string joined = array.ToDelimitedString();or specify the delimited explicitly:
string joined = array.ToDelimitedString(",");It doesn't (as you noticed).
For string arrays you can use:
string.Join(",", myArray)for other arrays I think you need to code it yourself.
2No, ToString of an array will give you the Type name string of the object. use String.Join method instead.
To achieve this effect you should call String.Join(string, string[])
I.e.
string[] stringArray = new string[] { "a", "b", "c" };
string.Join(",", stringArray);You can use string.Concat(Object[] args). This calls the ToString() method of every object in args. In a custom class you can override the ToString() method to achieve custom string conversion like this:
public class YourClass
{ private int number; public YourClass(int num) { number = num; } public override string ToString() { return "#" + number; }
}Now you can concatenate an array of instances of your custom class:
YourClass[] yourArray = { new YourClass(1), new YourClass(2), new YourClass(3) };
string concatenated = string.Concat(yourArray);Unfortunately this method does not add any delimiters, but I found it to be elegant. The variable concatenated will contain "#1#2#2".
