ICollection<string> to string[]

Question

I have a object of type ICollection<string>. What is the best way to convert to string[].

How can this be done in .NET 2?
How can this be done cleaner in later version of C#, perhaps using LINQ in C# 3?

Answer 1

You could use the following snippet to convert it to an ordinary array:

string[] array = new string[collection.Count];
collection.CopyTo(array, 0);

That should do the job :)

Answer 2

If you're using C# 3.0 and .Net framework 3.5, you should be able to do:

ICollection<string> col = new List<string>() { "a","b"};
string[] colArr = col.ToArray();

of course, you must have "using System.Linq;" at the top of the file