C# - Accesing to items for a collection inherited from List<string>

Question

I am trying to implement a new class inherited from List<string>, to load the contents from a text file to the items.

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;

public class ListExt : List<string>
{
    string baseDirectory;

    public void LoadFromFile(string FileName)
    {
        //does not work because _list is private
        this._items = File.ReadAllLines(FileName).ToList();
    }
}

But I dont know how to load the lines into the _items property because it is private.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Try something like:

public void LoadFromFile(string FileName)
{
    base.AddRange(File.ReadAllLines(FileName));
}

Answer 2

ListExt is the list - so you can just call AddRange on yourself. You can't reassign the list - that would essentially be changing this.

Answer 3

Try this:

AddRange(File.ReadAllLines(FileName).ToList());

Answer 4

No need to derive a whole new class from List<T> over the following line.

List<string> lines = new List<string>(File.ReadAllLines(path));