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

Question

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

Answer 1

ou can use RegEx.Split to split directly using the Enviroment.NewLine.

public static List<string> ConvertBlockToLines(this string block)
{
   return Regex.Split(block, Environment.NewLine).ToList();
}

Answer 2

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();

Answer 3

Hmm. You know that string now has a .Split() that takes a string[] array, right?

So ...

string[] lines = data.Split(
    new string[1]{ Environment.NewLine },
    StringSplitOptions.None
);

Answer 4

LINQ!

var linesEnum = testBlock.Split(new string[] { Environment.NewLine }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).AsEnumerable();

List<string> lines = linesEnum.ToList();

Answer 5

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 6

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

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