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

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();