Enumerable.ToList<TSource>(IEnumerable<TSource>) Method

Definition

Namespace:

System.Linq

Assembly:

System.Linq.dll

Source:

ToCollection.cs

Creates a List<T> from an IEnumerable<T>.

public:
generic <typename TSource>
[System::Runtime::CompilerServices::Extension]
 static System::Collections::Generic::List<TSource> ^ ToList(System::Collections::Generic::IEnumerable<TSource> ^ source);

public static System.Collections.Generic.List<TSource> ToList<TSource> (this System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<TSource> source);

static member ToList : seq<'Source> -> System.Collections.Generic.List<'Source>

<Extension()>
Public Function ToList(Of TSource) (source As IEnumerable(Of TSource)) As List(Of TSource)

Type Parameters

TSource

The type of the elements of source.

Parameters

source

IEnumerable<TSource>

The IEnumerable<T> to create a List<T> from.

Returns

List<TSource>

A List<T> that contains elements from the input sequence.

Exceptions

ArgumentNullException

source is null.

Examples

The following code example demonstrates how to use ToList to force immediate query evaluation and return a List<T> that contains the query results.

string[] fruits = { "apple", "passionfruit", "banana", "mango",
                      "orange", "blueberry", "grape", "strawberry" };

List<int> lengths = fruits.Select(fruit => fruit.Length).ToList();

foreach (int length in lengths)
{
    Console.WriteLine(length);
}

/*
 This code produces the following output:

 5
 12
 6
 5
 6
 9
 5
 10
*/

' Create an array of strings.
Dim fruits() As String =
{"apple", "passionfruit", "banana", "mango",
 "orange", "blueberry", "grape", "strawberry"}

' Project the length of each string and
' put the length values into a List object.
Dim lengths As List(Of Integer) =
fruits _
.Select(Function(fruit) fruit.Length) _
.ToList()

' Display the results.
Dim output As New System.Text.StringBuilder
For Each length As Integer In lengths
    output.AppendLine(length)
Next
Console.WriteLine(output.ToString())

' This code produces the following output:
'
' 5
' 12
' 6
' 5
' 6
' 9
' 5
' 10

Remarks

The ToList<TSource>(IEnumerable<TSource>) method forces immediate query evaluation and returns a List<T> that contains the query results. You can append this method to your query in order to obtain a cached copy of the query results.

ToArray has similar behavior but returns an array instead of a List<T>.