Copying the contents of a List<string> to text file while debugging

Question

I need to compare the contents of a List for two runs for my program. What is the easiest way to copy the entire contents of the List manually from Visual Studio to notepad while stepping through the code. I can view the contents in QuickWatch. How can I copy all the elements?

Answer 1

You can open the immediate window and run something like:

string.Join(", ", yourList) 

or just

yourList 

To open the immediate window: Debug -> Windows -> Immediate or the equivalent Ctrl+D, I

Answer 2

Simply type this into the immediate window:

 File.WriteAllLines("foo.txt", yourList); 

Or if it's a list of something other than strings:

 File.WriteAllLines("foo.txt", yourList.ConvertAll(Convert.ToString));