Question

Working with an API where I need to send a value over in an array of NVPairs, like the following:

new[]
{
    new[]
    {
        new NVPair
        {
            name = "email_address",
            value = "[e-mail]"
        }
    },
    new[]
    {
        new NVPair
        {
            name = "email_address",
            value = "[e-mail]"
        }
     }
}

I need to be able to create this (the value, or “[e-mail]”) from a list of strings (that will be the email addresses).

Would anyone be able to provide some guidance?

Answer 1

Assuming you really want an array of single-element arrays, I suspect you want:

var nvPairs = strings.Select(x => new[] { new NVPair("email_address", x) })
                     .ToArray();

This is also assuming that the NVPair type in question has a two-parameter constructor, taking the name and the value. If it doesn’t, the query becomes uglier:

var nvPairs = strings.Select(x => new[] { new NVPair { name = "email_address",
                                                       value = x } })
                     .ToArray();

Note the new[] so that each element is transformed into a single-element array.

Another option which would at least work from a compile-time point of view is to create a single-element outer array, where its sole element was a multi-element array:

var nvPairs = new[] { strings.Select(x => new NVPair("email_address", x))
                             .ToArray() };