Is there a way to convert an observable collection to a List?

Question

I've got a test collection setup as :

ObservableCollection<Person> MyselectedPeople = new ObservableCollection<Person>();

public MainWindow()
    {
       InitializeComponent();
       FillData();
    }

public void FillData()
    {
        Person p1 = new Person();
        p1.NameFirst = "John";
        p1.NameLast = "Doe";
        p1.Address = "123 Main Street";
        p1.City = "Wilmington";
        p1.DOBTimeStamp = DateTime.Parse("04/12/1968").Date;
        p1.EyeColor = "Blue";
        p1.Height = "601";
        p1.HairColor = "BRN";

        MyselectedPeople.Add(p1);
    }

Once I have this collection built I would like to be able to convert the Observable Collection to the type List.

The reason behind this is my main project is receiving a generic list with data I have to convert it to an Observable collection for use in gridview, listboxes etc. Data is selected within the UI and then sent back to the originating assembly for further useage.

Any pointers to these type of conversions?

Thanks

Answer 1

Try the following

var list = MyselectedPeople.ToList();

Make sure you have System.Linq as one of your using statements.

Answer 2

This should do it...

List<Person> myList = MyselectedPeople.ToList<Person>();

Answer 3

I think the quickest way to do this is with LINQ.

 List<Person> personList= MySelectedPeople.ToList(); 

Cheers.

Answer 4

I just want to point out that aside from the obvious Linq extension method, List has always had an overload that takes an IEnumerable<T>

return new List<Person>(MyselectedPeople);

Answer 5

It's odd that your back-end assembly is coded to only accept List<T>. That's very restrictive, and prevents you from doing useful things like passing an array, or an ObservableCollection<T>, or a Collection<T>, or a ReadOnlyCollection<T>, or the Keys or Values properties of a Dictionary<TKey, TValue>, or any of the myriad of other list-like things out there.

If possible, change your back-end assembly to accept an IList<T>. Then you can just pass in your ObservableCollection<T> as-is, without ever needing to copy its contents into a List<T>.