Question

I know it must have been asked more than twice, but I could not find any applicable question to answer the matter.

I have a collection which I wish to retrieve an array from in .NET 2.0. In other words, I want to convert a collection into an array. So far I have the following:

Public Class Set(Of T)
    Implements IEnumerable(Of T)
    Implements ICollection(Of T)
    Implements IEqualityComparer(Of T)

    Private _set as Dictionary(Of T, Object)

    // Implementing the interfaces here...

    Public Function ToArray() As Array
        Dim arr As Array = Array.CreateInstance(GetType(T), Me.Count)
        Me.CopyTo(arr, 0)
        Return arr
    End Function
End Class

And then, when I’m calling it, I simply have to:

Dim propertiesToLoad As CustomSet(Of String) = New CustomSet(Of String)()
// Initializing my CustomSet here...

Dim searcher As DirectorySearcher = New DirectorySearcher()
Dim entry As DirectoryEntry = New DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" & Environment.UserDomain)

searcher.SearchRoot = entry
searcher.SearchScope = SearchScope.Subtree
searcher.Filter = someFilter
searcher.PropertiesToLoad.AddRange(propertiesToLoad.ToArray())

// Launching search here...

Is there a more effective way to do it in .NET 2.0?

EDIT #1

Implementations of Count and CopyTo in my CustomSet(Of T):

Public ReadOnly Property Count As Integer Implements ICollection(Of T).Count
    Get
        Return _set.Keys.Count
    End Get
End Property

Public Sub CopyTo(ByVal array As T, ByVal arrayIndex As Integer) Implements ICollection(Of T).CopyTo
    _set.Keys.CopyTo(array, arrayIndex)
End Sub

Answer 1

You don’t need to use CreateInstance to create the array, you know the type, and you can even return it as an array of the specific type:

Public Function ToArray() As T()
  Dim arr(Me.Count) As T
  Me.CopyTo(arr, 0)
  Return arr
End Function

How efficient this is, of course relies on how efficient your implementations of ICollection(Of T).Count and ICollection(Of T).CopyTo are.