If object is Generic List

Question

Is there any way to determine if an object is a generic list? I\'m not going to know the type of the list, I just know it\'s a list. How can I determine that?

Answer 1

The question is ambiguous.

The answer depends on what you mean by a generic list.

• A List ?

• A class that derives from List ?

• A class that implements IList (in which case an array can be considered to be a generic list - e.g. int[] implements IList)?

• A class that is generic and implements IEnumerable (this is the test proposed in the accepted answer)? But this will also consider the following rather pathological class to be a generic list:

.

public class MyClass : IEnumerable
{
    IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        return null;
    }
}

The best solution (e.g. whether to use GetType, IsAssignableFrom, etc) will depend on what you mean.