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

Definition

Namespace:

System.Linq

Assembly:

System.Linq.dll

Source:

ToCollection.cs

Creates an array from a IEnumerable<T>.

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

public static TSource[] ToArray<TSource> (this System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<TSource> source);

static member ToArray : seq<'Source> -> 'Source[]

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

Type Parameters

TSource

The type of the elements of source.

Parameters

source

IEnumerable<TSource>

An IEnumerable<T> to create an array from.

Returns

TSource[]

An array that contains the elements from the input sequence.

Exceptions

ArgumentNullException

source is null.

Examples

The following code example demonstrates how to use ToArray to force immediate query evaluation and return an array of results.

class Package
{
    public string Company { get; set; }
    public double Weight { get; set; }
}

public static void ToArrayEx1()
{
    List<Package> packages =
        new List<Package>
            { new Package { Company = "Coho Vineyard", Weight = 25.2 },
              new Package { Company = "Lucerne Publishing", Weight = 18.7 },
              new Package { Company = "Wingtip Toys", Weight = 6.0 },
              new Package { Company = "Adventure Works", Weight = 33.8 } };

    string[] companies = packages.Select(pkg => pkg.Company).ToArray();

    foreach (string company in companies)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(company);
    }
}

/*
 This code produces the following output:

 Coho Vineyard
 Lucerne Publishing
 Wingtip Toys
 Adventure Works
*/

Structure Package
    Public Company As String
    Public Weight As Double
End Structure

Sub ToArrayEx1()
    ' Create a list of Package values.
    Dim packages As New List(Of Package)(New Package() _
     {New Package With {.Company = "Coho Vineyard", .Weight = 25.2},
      New Package With {.Company = "Lucerne Publishing", .Weight = 18.7},
      New Package With {.Company = "Wingtip Toys", .Weight = 6.0},
      New Package With {.Company = "Adventure Works", .Weight = 33.8}})

    ' Project the Company values from each item in the list
    ' and put them into an array.
    Dim companies() As String =
    packages _
    .Select(Function(pkg) pkg.Company) _
    .ToArray()

    ' Display the results.
    Dim output As New System.Text.StringBuilder
    For Each company As String In companies
        output.AppendLine(company)
    Next
    Console.WriteLine(output.ToString())
End Sub

' This code produces the following output:
'
' Coho Vineyard
' Lucerne Publishing
' Wingtip Toys
' Adventure Works

Remarks

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

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