Question

Is there an implicit way to tell a generic collection to use the Type of the incoming IEnumerable<T> data?

Assume any Type can be incoming because it might have been obscured, for example, through IQueryable and might contain an anonymous Type.

var enumerableThings = //... enumerable<T> obtained from somewhere.

The point is T is unknown.

I want to create a List<T> of the primary Type of the enumerable thing:

var listOfThoseThings = new List<???>(enumerableThings);

There are many interesting mechanisms in C#/.NET. I wouldn’t be surprised to find the ability to carry out this task; however at the moment a concise way evades me.

Answer 1

This is why the ToList() extension method exists.

var listOfThoseThings = enumerableThings.ToList();

Unlike the List<T> constructor, it can use type inference to implcitly specify the generic parameter.