Question

Why does T[] stand for array and not IEnumerable<T> in C#?

I know that generics were introduced in .NET 2.0. If it was designed from scratch, does it make any sense to map [] to array? Actively using LINQ extension methods, I’d prefer to write simple T[] instead of bulky IEnumerable<T> or explicit .ToArray().

I’m wondering just for academic reasons.

Answer 1

T[] is the standard syntax for arrays for statically-typed C-like languages. If .NET 1.0 had generics, arrays might have used an Array<T> type.

At any rate, if T[] was used for IEnumerable<T> it could only be used in declarations and you wouldn’t be able to create one using new T[] { ... }. As far as interfaces go, it would make more sense to map it to IList<T> since the square brackets imply indexing.