Quickest way to comma separate a Tridion multivalue field

Question

What would be the quickest way to have a multivalue Tridion text field split into a comma separated string? In my case I am using C#, but I guess any other examples are welcome as well. This is the ugly and long way it seems:

var multiTextField = fields["multiTextField"] as TextField;
string multiCommaField = String.Empty;

for (int i = 0; i < multiTextField.Values.Count; i++)
{
    multiCommaField += multiTextField.Values[i].ToString() + ",";
}

Edit: I am using .NET 3.5 and Tridion 2009 SP1

Answer 1

You can user LINQ:

var multiTextField = fields["multiTextField"] as TextField;
string delimeter = ",";     
Console.WriteLine(multiTextField.Values.Aggregate((i, j) => i + delimeter + j))

Or in shorter (uglier) way:

((TextField) fields["multiTextField"]).Values.Aggregate((i, j) => i + "," + j))

Answer 2

You haven't specified your version of Tridion or .Net in your question, but there are a few different techniques you could use to get comma separated values from the textfield.

If you're using .Net 4, I believe you could just do:

string.Join(",", multiTextField.Values);

as long as multiTextField.Values implements IList.

If you're using .Net 3.5 or earlier, I believe that the string.Join() function requires an array rather than IList.

There was a pretty good discussion regarding the options here String Join on a List (.Net 4)
or here Trying to string.Join an IList (.Net 4)
or here Creating a comma separated list from IList (.Net 3.5)

Answer 3

Evaluate the expression. A multi-valued text field is already a comma-separated string "under the water", so you could just grab it in your Dreamweaver layer like this:

@@(Component.multiValueField)@@

Answer 4

Have you tried multiTextField.Values.ToArray().Join(",")?