LINQ list to sentence format (insert commas & “and”)

Question

I have a linq query that does something simple like:

var k = people.Select(x=>new{x.ID, x.Name});

I then want a function or linq lambda,

Answer 1

Here's a method that doesn't use LINQ, but is probably as efficient as you can get:

public static string Join(this IEnumerable list,
                             string joiner,
                             string lastJoiner = null)
{
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    string sep = null, lastItem = null;
    foreach (T item in list)
    {
        if (lastItem != null)
        {
            sb.Append(sep);
            sb.Append(lastItem);
            sep = joiner;
        }
        lastItem = item.ToString();
    }
    if (lastItem != null)
    {
        if (sep != null)
            sb.Append(lastJoiner ?? joiner);
        sb.Append(lastItem);
    }
    return sb.ToString();
}

Console.WriteLine(people.Select(x => x.ID + ":" + x.Name).Join(", ", " and "));

Since it never creates a list, looks at an element twice, or appends extra stuff to the StringBuilder, I don't think you can get more efficient. It also works for 0, 1, and 2 elements in the list (as well as more, obviously).