Using LINQ to concatenate strings

Question

What is the most efficient way to write the old-school:

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
if (strings.Count > 0)
{
    foreach (string s in strings)
    {
        sb.Append(s + ", ");
    }
    sb.Remove(sb.Length - 2, 2);
}
return sb.ToString();

...in LINQ?

Answer 1

I always use the extension method:

public static string JoinAsString<T>(this IEnumerable<T> input, string seperator)
{
    var ar = input.Select(i => i.ToString()).ToArray();
    return string.Join(seperator, ar);
}

Answer 2

Here is the combined Join/Linq approach I settled on after looking at the other answers and the issues addressed in a similar question (namely that Aggregate and Concatenate fail with 0 elements).

string Result = String.Join(",", split.Select(s => s.Name));

or (if s is not a string)

string Result = String.Join(",", split.Select(s => s.ToString()));

• Simple
• easy to read and understand
• works for generic elements
• allows using objects or object properties
• handles the case of 0-length elements
• could be used with additional Linq filtering
• performs well (at least in my experience)
• doesn't require (manual) creation of an additional object (e.g. StringBuilder) to implement

And of course Join takes care of the pesky final comma that sometimes sneaks into other approaches (for, foreach), which is why I was looking for a Linq solution in the first place.

Answer 3

quick performance data for the StringBuilder vs Select & Aggregate case over 3000 elements:

Unit test - Duration (seconds)
LINQ_StringBuilder - 0.0036644
LINQ_Select.Aggregate - 1.8012535

    [TestMethod()]
    public void LINQ_StringBuilder()
    {
        IList<int> ints = new List<int>();
        for (int i = 0; i < 3000;i++ )
        {
            ints.Add(i);
        }
        StringBuilder idString = new StringBuilder();
        foreach (int id in ints)
        {
            idString.Append(id + ", ");
        }
    }
    [TestMethod()]
    public void LINQ_SELECT()
    {
        IList<int> ints = new List<int>();
        for (int i = 0; i < 3000; i++)
        {
            ints.Add(i);
        }
        string ids = ints.Select(query => query.ToString())
                         .Aggregate((a, b) => a + ", " + b);
    }

Answer 4

I blogged about this a while ago, what I did seams to be exactly what you're looking for:

http://ondevelopment.blogspot.com/2009/02/string-concatenation-made-easy.html

In the blog post describe how to implement extension methods that works on IEnumerable and are named Concatenate, this will let you write things like:

var sequence = new string[] { "foo", "bar" };
string result = sequence.Concatenate();

Or more elaborate things like:

var methodNames = typeof(IFoo).GetMethods().Select(x => x.Name);
string result = methodNames.Concatenate(", ");

Answer 5

I did the following quick and dirty when parsing an IIS log file using linq, it worked @ 1 million lines pretty well (15 seconds), although got an out of memory error when trying 2 millions lines.

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {

        Debug.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString() + " entering main");

        // USED THIS DOS COMMAND TO GET ALL THE DAILY FILES INTO A SINGLE FILE: copy *.log target.log 
        string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines(@"C:\Log File Analysis\12-8 E5.log");

        Debug.WriteLine(lines.Count().ToString());

        string[] a = lines.Where(x => !x.StartsWith("#Software:") &&
                                      !x.StartsWith("#Version:") &&
                                      !x.StartsWith("#Date:") &&
                                      !x.StartsWith("#Fields:") &&
                                      !x.Contains("_vti_") &&
                                      !x.Contains("/c$") &&
                                      !x.Contains("/favicon.ico") &&
                                      !x.Contains("/ - 80")
                                 ).ToArray();

        Debug.WriteLine(a.Count().ToString());

        string[] b = a
                    .Select(l => l.Split(' '))
                    .Select(words => string.Join(",", words))
                    .ToArray()
                    ;

        System.IO.File.WriteAllLines(@"C:\Log File Analysis\12-8 E5.csv", b);

        Debug.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString() + " leaving main");

    }

The real reason I used linq was for a Distinct() I neede previously:

string[] b = a
    .Select(l => l.Split(' '))
    .Where(l => l.Length > 11)
    .Select(words => string.Format("{0},{1}",
        words[6].ToUpper(), // virtual dir / service
        words[10]) // client ip
    ).Distinct().ToArray()
    ;