List<comma-separated strings> => List<string>?

Question

Trying to come up with a LINQy way to do this, but nothing's coming to me.

I have a List<> of objects which include a property which is a comma-separated list of alpha codes:

lst[0].codes = "AA,BB,DD"
lst[1].codes = "AA,DD,EE"
lst[2].codes = "GG,JJ"

I'd like a list of those codes, hopefully in the form of a List of strings:

result = AA,BB,DD,EE,GG,JJ

Thanks for any direction.

Answer 1

Use SelectMany to get all split codes and use Distinct to not repeat the values. Try something like this:

var result = lst.SelectMany(x => x.codes.Split(",")).Distinct().ToList();