What is the best way to convert a string separated by return chars into a List<string>?

Question

I need to often convert a "string block" (a string containing return characters, e.g. from a file or a TextBox) into List<string>.

What is a more elegant way of doing it than the ConvertBlockToLines method below?

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

namespace TestConvert9922
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string testBlock = "line one" + Environment.NewLine +
                "line two" + Environment.NewLine +
                "line three" + Environment.NewLine +
                "line four" + Environment.NewLine +
                "line five";

            List<string> lines = StringHelpers.ConvertBlockToLines(testBlock);

            lines.ForEach(l => Console.WriteLine(l));
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    public static class StringHelpers
    {
        public static List<string> ConvertBlockToLines(this string block)
        {
            string fixedBlock = block.Replace(Environment.NewLine, "§");
            List<string> lines = fixedBlock.Split('§').ToList<string>();
            lines.ForEach(s => s = s.Trim());
            return lines;
        }

    }
}

Answer 1

List<string> newStr = str.Split(new[] { Environment.NewLine }, StringSplitOptions.None).ToList();

This will keep consecutive newlines as empty strings (see StringSplitOptions)

Answer 2

No need to convert to your special sign:

List<string> strings = str.Split(new string[] {Environment.NewLine}, StringSplitOptions.None).ToList();
strings.ForEach(s => s = s.Trim());

Answer 3

Have you tried splitting on newline/carriage return and using the IEnumerable ToList extension?

testBlock.Split( new char[] { '\n', '\r' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries )
         .ToList()

If you want to keep empty lines but may have both linefeed and carriage return.

textBlock.Replace( "\r\n", "\n" ).Replace( "\r", "\n" ).Split( '\n' ).ToList();