How do I initialize an empty array in C#?

Question

Is it possible to create an empty array without specifying the size?

For example, I created:

String[] a = new String[5]; 

Can we create the above string array without the size?

Answer 1

If you are going to use a collection that you don't know the size of in advance, there are better options than arrays.

Use a List<string> instead - it will allow you to add as many items as you need and if you need to return an array, call ToArray() on the variable.

var listOfStrings = new List<string>();  // do stuff...  string[] arrayOfStrings = listOfStrings.ToArray(); 

If you must create an empty array you can do this:

string[] emptyStringArray = new string[0];