c# When should I use List and when should I use arraylist?

Question

As the title says when should I use List and when should I use ArrayList?

Thanks

Answer 1

The main time to use ArrayList is in .NET 1.1

Other than that, List<T> all the way (for your local T)...

For those (rare) cases where you don't know the type up-front (and can't use generics), even List<object> is more helpful than ArrayList (IMO).

Answer 2

You should always use List<TypeOfChoice> (introduced in .NET 2.0 with generics) since it is TypeSafe and faster than ArrayList (no un-necessary boxing/unboxing).

Only case I could think of where an ArrayList could be handy is if you need to interface with old stuff (.NET 1.1) or you need an array of objects of different type and you load up everything as object - but you could do the latter with List<Object> which is generally better.