Question

Using “string.Join(“,”, test);” works but for some reason I get an output of:

“Ilistprac.Location, Ilistprac.Location, Ilistprac.Location”

I tried ToString, Convert.ToString, etc and I still get that output.

All the IList interfaces are implemented with the IEnurmerable too (just not listed here unless someone wants me to).

class IList2
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {

     string sSite = "test";

 string sBldg = "test32";
     string sSite1 = "test";
     string sSite2 = "test";

     Locations test = new Locations();
     Location loc = new Location();
     test.Add(sSite, sBldg)
     test.Add(sSite1)
     test.Add(sSite2)
     string printitout = string.Join(",", test); //having issues outputting whats on the list

     }
 }
string printitout = string.Join(",", test.ToArray<Location>);


public class Location
{
    public Location()
    {

    }
    private string _site = string.Empty;
    public string Site
    {
        get { return _site; }
        set { _site = value; }
    }
}

public class Locations : IList<Location>
{
    List<Location> _locs = new List<Location>();

    public Locations() { }

    public void Add(string sSite)
    {
        Location loc = new Location();
        loc.Site = sSite;

        loc.Bldg = sBldg;
        _locs.Add(loc);
    }

    private string _bldg = string.Empty;

    public string Bldg

    {

        get { return _bldg; }

        set { _bldg = value; }

    }


 }

Answer 1

You need to supply a useful ToString implementation for Location as Join is calling that for each element. The default implementation will just return the name of the type. See documentation.

So if you have a type like

class SomeType
{
    public string FirstName { get; private set;  }
    public string LastName { get; private set; }

    public SomeType(string first, string last)
    {
        FirstName = first;
        LastName = last;
    }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        return string.Format("{0}, {1}", LastName, FirstName);
    }
}

You need to specify how that should be represented as a string. If you do that, you can use string.Join like this to produce the output below.

var names = new List<SomeType> { 
    new SomeType("Homer", "Simpson"), 
    new SomeType("Marge", "Simpson") 
};

Console.WriteLine(string.Join("\n", names));

Output:

Simpson, Homer
Simpson, Marge