I need a generic collection class which I can add to, and enumerate over. Since ICollection<T> inherits from IEnumerable<T>, the class really just needs to inherit from ICollection<T>. Is there a simple generic class in the BCL that just inherits ICollection<T> like a generic version of CollectionBase? If not, then what class comes closest?
I would guess List<T> which is what I’ve been using but i don’t need to sequential aspect. Is there anything better (by which I mean [smaller memory footprint/faster access/simpler])? Bag would be perfect if it existed.
EDIT 1: In my particular instance, I’m .concating to another IEnumerable, querying it, and then displaying the results (in no particular order). I’m not attempting to make my own class. I’ve just needed to make a throwaway collection so many times, that I thought it would be useful to find the best throwaway to use. Because I feel I’ve done something similar so many times, I felt I should keep this question as generic as possible (no pun intended), I know better now.
EDIT 2: Thanks for everybody’s answers, As @BlueRaja pointed out, any simple class is going to have about the same overhead, and thus I think I will be sticking with my original ways of using List<T>. Since they are all about the same, my silly reasons of “It’s easier to type”, and “I don’t have to bring in yet another using” aren’t such bad reasons.
They are all going to have pretty much the same memory footprint, and if you use ICollection the interface will not change.
What really matters is which will scale best for the operations you need: Linked-list does better appending/removal (of head/tail elements), while an array-based list has random-access. There are other structures too – which you should use depends on your application.