Join collection of objects into comma-separated string

Question

In many places in our code we have collections of objects, from which we need to create a comma-separated list. The type of collection varies: it may be a DataTable from whi

Answer 1

static string ToCsv(IEnumerable things, Func toStringMethod)
{
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

    foreach (T thing in things)
        sb.Append(toStringMethod(thing)).Append(',');

    return sb.ToString(0, sb.Length - 1); //remove trailing ,
}

Use like this:

DataTable dt = ...; //datatable with some data
Console.WriteLine(ToCsv(dt.Rows, row => row["ColName"]));

or:

List customers = ...; //assume Customer has a Name property
Console.WriteLine(ToCsv(customers, c => c.Name));

I don't have a compiler to hand but in theory it should work. And as everyone knows, in theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they're not.