[c#] Create comma separated strings C#?

I have an object which holds many values, some of them (not all values from the object) need to be put in a csv string. My approach was this:

string csvString = o.number + "," + o.id + "," + o.whatever ....

Somehow I think there is a better, more elegant way?

You could override your object's ToString() method:

public override string ToString ()
{
    return string.Format ("{0},{1},{2}", this.number, this.id, this.whatever);
}

You can use the string.Join method to do something like string.Join(",", o.Number, o.Id, o.whatever, ...).

edit: As digEmAll said, string.Join is faster than StringBuilder. They use an external implementation for the string.Join.

Profiling code (of course run in release without debug symbols):

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
        string r;
        int iter = 10000;

        string[] values = { "a", "b", "c", "d", "a little bit longer please", "one more time" };

        sw.Restart();
        for (int i = 0; i < iter; i++)
            r = Program.StringJoin(",", values);
        sw.Stop();
        Console.WriteLine("string.Join ({0} times): {1}ms", iter, sw.ElapsedMilliseconds);

        sw.Restart();
        for (int i = 0; i < iter; i++)
            r = Program.StringBuilderAppend(",", values);
        sw.Stop();
        Console.WriteLine("StringBuilder.Append ({0} times): {1}ms", iter, sw.ElapsedMilliseconds);
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    static string StringJoin(string seperator, params string[] values)
    {
        return string.Join(seperator, values);
    }

    static string StringBuilderAppend(string seperator, params string[] values)
    {
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
        builder.Append(values[0]);
        for (int i = 1; i < values.Length; i++)
        {
            builder.Append(seperator);
            builder.Append(values[i]);
        }
        return builder.ToString();
    }
}

string.Join took 2ms on my machine and StringBuilder.Append 5ms. So there is noteworthy difference. Thanks to digAmAll for the hint.

Another approach is to use the CommaDelimitedStringCollection class from System.Configuration namespace/assembly. It behaves like a list plus it has an overriden ToString method that returns a comma-separated string.

Pros - More flexible than an array.

Cons - You can't pass a string containing a comma.

CommaDelimitedStringCollection list = new CommaDelimitedStringCollection();

list.AddRange(new string[] { "Huey", "Dewey" });
list.Add("Louie");
//list.Add(",");

string s = list.ToString(); //Huey,Dewey,Louie

If you're using .Net 4 you can use the overload for string.Join that takes an IEnumerable if you have them in a List, too:

string.Join(", ", strings);