Creating a List of Lists in C#

Question

I seem to be having some trouble wrapping my head around the idea of a Generic List of Generic Lists in C#. I think the problem stems form the use of the

Answer 1

you should not use Nested List in List.

List<List<T>> 

is not legal, even if T were a defined type.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms182144.aspx

Answer 2

A quick example:

List<List<string>> myList = new List<List<string>>();
myList.Add(new List<string> { "a", "b" });
myList.Add(new List<string> { "c", "d", "e" });
myList.Add(new List<string> { "qwerty", "asdf", "zxcv" });
myList.Add(new List<string> { "a", "b" });

// To iterate over it.
foreach (List<string> subList in myList)
{
    foreach (string item in subList)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(item);
    }
}

Is that what you were looking for? Or are you trying to create a new class that extends List<T> that has a member that is a `List'?

Answer 3

or this example, just to make it more visible:

public class CustomerListList : List<CustomerList> { }  

public class CustomerList : List<Customer> { }

public class Customer
{
   public int ID { get; set; }
   public string SomethingWithText { get; set; }
}

and you can keep it going. to the infinity and beyond !

Answer 4

I have been toying with this idea too, but I was trying to achieve a slightly different behavior. My idea was to make a list which inherits itself, thus creating a data structure that by nature allows you to embed lists within lists within lists within lists...infinitely!

Implementation

//InfiniteList<T> is a list of itself...
public class InfiniteList<T> : List<InfiniteList<T>>
{
    //This is necessary to allow your lists to store values (of type T).
    public T Value { set; get; }
}

T is a generic type parameter. It is there to ensure type safety in your class. When you create an instance of InfiniteList, you replace T with the type you want your list to be populated with, or in this instance, the type of the Value property.

Example

//The InfiniteList.Value property will be of type string
InfiniteList<string> list = new InfiniteList<string>();

A "working" example of this, where T is in itself, a List of type string!

//Create an instance of InfiniteList where T is List<string>
InfiniteList<List<string>> list = new InfiniteList<List<string>>();

//Add a new instance of InfiniteList<List<string>> to "list" instance.
list.Add(new InfiniteList<List<string>>());

//access the first element of "list". Access the Value property, and add a new string to it.
list[0].Value.Add("Hello World");

Answer 5

public class ListOfLists<T> : List<List<T>>
{
}


var myList = new ListOfLists<string>();