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SelectMany Example: LINQ
Updated Nov 20, 2022
Dot Net Perls
SelectMany. This C# method, from LINQ, collapses many elements into a single collection. The resulting collection is of another element type.
C# method notes. We specify how an element is transformed into a collection of other elements. For example, we can change string elements into char array elements.
Select
To start, this program uses an array of string literals. Then, the SelectMany method is used on this array. Each string is transformed in SelectMany.
Detail The argument to SelectMany is a Func lambda expression. It specifies that each string should be converted to a character array.
Finally SelectMany combines all those character arrays and we loop over each char.
String Literal
Func
char Array
String ToCharArray
using System;
using System.Linq;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // Input.
        string[] array =
        {
            "dot",
            "net",
            "perls"
        };

        // Convert each string in the string array to a character array.
        // ... Then combine those character arrays into one.
        var result = array.SelectMany(element => element.ToCharArray());

        // Display letters.
        foreach (char letter in result)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(letter);
        }
    }
}
d o t n e t p e r l s
Discussion. If you can change an element into separate parts, you can use SelectMany. If you have an array of strings separated by delimiters, you can use SelectMany after splitting them.
Then The final result is an array of all the individual parts of all the strings.
Array
String Split
A summary. This method collapses a collection of elements. It yields a flattened representation of elements. We simplify data representations by transforming each element into its parts.
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This page was last updated on Nov 20, 2022 (edit).
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