Question

Which of these methods are the most efficient one or is there a better way to do it?

this.returnList[i].Title[0].ToString()

or

this.returnList[i].Title.Substring(0, 1)

Answer 1

They’re both very fast:

Char Index

var sample = "sample";
var clock = new Stopwatch();
for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    clock.Start();
    for (var j = 0; j < 10000000; j++)
    {
        var first = sample[0].ToString();
    }
    clock.Stop();
    Console.Write(clock.Elapsed);
    clock.Reset();
}

// Results
00:00:00.2012243
00:00:00.2207168
00:00:00.2184807
00:00:00.2258847
00:00:00.2296456
00:00:00.2261465
00:00:00.2120131
00:00:00.2221702
00:00:00.2346083
00:00:00.2330840

Substring

var sample = "sample";
var clock = new Stopwatch();
for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    clock.Start();
    for (var j = 0; j < 10000000; j++)
    {
        var first = sample.Substring(0, 1);
    }
    clock.Stop();
    Console.Write(clock.Elapsed);
    clock.Reset();
}

// Results
00:00:00.3268155
00:00:00.3337077
00:00:00.3439908
00:00:00.3273090
00:00:00.3380794
00:00:00.3400650
00:00:00.3280275
00:00:00.3333719
00:00:00.3295982
00:00:00.3368425

I also agree with BrokenGlass that using the char index is a cleaner way of writing it. Plus if you’re doing it 10 trillion times it’ll be much faster!