Create a comma-separated strings in C#

c# string-concatenation

I have an object which holds many values, and 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 ....

Is there is a better, more elegant way?

If you put all your values in an array, at least you can use string.Join.

string[] myValues = new string[] { ... };
string csvString = string.Join(",", myValues);

You can also use the overload of string.Join that takes params string as the second parameter like this:

string csvString = string.Join(",", value1, value2, value3, ...);

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

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.

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);

Create a comma-separated strings in C#

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