Does Array.ToString() provide a useful output?

Question

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?

Answer 1

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()); 

Answer 2

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(",");