How To Use A String Collection in C#

The CopyTo method of StringCollection is used to copy items from a StringCollection to an array. The CopyTo method takes two arguments. First is the name of the StringCollection, and the second is the starting position in the StringCollection. The following code snippet copies all items from authorNames StringCollection to an array.

// Copy Collection to new Array  
string[] newAuthorList = new string[authorNames.Count];  
authorNames.CopyTo(newAuthorList, 0);  
foreach (string name in newAuthorList)  
{  
    Console.WriteLine(name);  
}  

Count strings in a string collection

Count property returns a total number of items in a StringCollection. For example, the following code snippet returns the number of items in authorNames collection.

Console.WriteLine("Total items in string collection: " + authorNames.Count.ToString());  

Getting items from a string collection

ArrayCollection is a collection. That means you can access its items by using an index. The following code snippet looks for the position of a string and accesses it using the Item property.

int authorLocation = authorNames.IndexOf("Mike Gold");  
string authorName = authorNames[authorLocation];  

StringCollection Code Sample:

Here is the listing of the complete code we have discussed in this article.

using System;  
using System.Collections.Generic;  
using System.Linq;  
using System.Text;  
using System.Collections;  
using System.Collections.Specialized;  
  
namespace StringCollectionSample  
{  
    class Program  
    {  
        static void Main(string[] args)  
        {  
            // Create a StringCollection object    
            StringCollection authorNames = new StringCollection();  
            // Add string using Add method    
            authorNames.Add("Mahesh Chand");  
            authorNames.Add("Mike Gold");  
            authorNames.Add("Praveen Kumar");  
            authorNames.Add("Raj Beniwal");  
            // Add an array of string using AddRange               
            string[] names = new string[] { "Chris Love", "Henry He", "Allen Neill", "David Maccarter" };  
            authorNames.AddRange(names);  
            // Insert an string at a specified index    
            authorNames.Insert(5, "New Author");  
            // authorNames.Clear();    
            // authorNames.Remove("Mike Gold");    
            // authorNames.RemoveAt(5);    
            if (authorNames.Contains("Mike Gold"))  
            {  
                Console.WriteLine("Mike Gold is at position: " + authorNames.IndexOf("Mike Gold"));  
            }  
            int authorLocation = authorNames.IndexOf("Mike Gold");  
            string authorName = authorNames[authorLocation];  
            Console.WriteLine("Position of Mike Gold is " + authorLocation.ToString());  
            Console.WriteLine("Total items in string collection: " + authorNames.Count.ToString());  
            Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------");  
            foreach (string name in authorNames)  
            {  
                Console.WriteLine(name);  
            }  
            Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------");  
            // Copy Collection to new Array    
            string[] newAuthorList = new string[authorNames.Count];  
            authorNames.CopyTo(newAuthorList, 0);  
            foreach (string name in newAuthorList)  
            {  
                Console.WriteLine(name);  
            }  
            Console.ReadLine();  
        }  
    }  
}  

The output from the above code is shown in the below figure.

Summary

StringCollection class is a new addition to the .NET Framework class library that represents a collection of strings. In this article, we saw how to take advantage of this class and its methods and properties to manage a collection of strings.

Here are recommended articles on collections:

1. C# Dictionary
2. C# Queue
3. C# Stack
4. C# List
5. C# Arrays
6. C# HashTable
7. C# StringCollection
8. C# ArrayList
9. C# HashSet
10. C# LinkedList