Most lightweight .NET collection

Question

I wonder, what are the differences in collection implementations in .NET .

For instance, I constantly use List<int> etc to store a list of items. However I just need a container for items, and I guess I don't need all the features that List have. I just need an container that has put method, and will enable client code to iterate over the container.

Are there any quicker, more lightweight collection implementations that implement IEnumerable<T> in .NET?

Answer 1

The most lightweight container which implements IEnumerable<T> is a typed array. It has no Add method (and therefore does not dynamically resize like a list does) but if you know what number of elements you want up front you can define the array and insert elements at a given position.

var myArray = new int[10];
myArray[0] = 123;
myArray[1] = 234;