How to pass a dynamic number of elements to a Method which accepts a ParamArray

I have a method which I need to call which accepts a ParamArray

Method(ByVal ParamArray elements() As Object)

I need to pass it two known strings, and an unknown number of strings, based on a variable number of XmlNodes in an XmlDocument

i.e.

Method("Known String 1", "Known String 2", Node1.OuterXml, ..., NodeN.OuterXml)

How can I do this?

I have tried looping through the nodes and creating and passing:

List(Of String) which results in elements() containing "Known String 1", "Known String 2", System.Collections.Generic.List[System.String]

List(Of String).ToArray which results in elements() containing "Known String 1", "Known String 2", System.String[]

String() which results in elements() containing "Known String 1", "Known String 2", System.String[]

and

Collection which results in elements() containing "Known String 1", "Known String 2", Microsoft.VisualBasic.Coll开发者_JS百科ection

What I want, for an example of 3 nodes is elements() to contain "Known String 1", "Known String 2", "<node 1>", "<node 2>", "<node 3>"

Is this possible?

The issue here is the nonintuitive leap between what you write and what the compiler does - mainly because the syntax is a little wonky.

Anyhow, notice that your method signature contains a SINGLE parameter: elements(). The () means its an array.

The ParamArray keyword allows you to "explode" the elements of an array and pass each array element as its own parameter to the method - something you already knew. But it also means that the compiler (or JIT, or whatever) recombines those parameters back into a single array.

You would have noticed this if you hadn't had the misfortune of defining elements as Object:

so TL;DR:
Either pass each array element individually - not an option in your case, Or pass a single array in for the array-typed parameter.

Dim stuffToPassInToTheMethod As List(Of String) = New List(Of String) From {"Magic String One", "Magic String Two"}

' Some loops and xml nodes.. blah blah.. end up calling stuffToPassInToTheMethod.Add(node.Attributes("yadda").Value

Then finally just pass it to the method: crazyMethodNameWithThePOINTLESSParamArray(stuffToPassInToTheMethod.ToArray)

My answer so far is to check the types in the method and add the values to a new List(Of String) and then work with the list, not the object array:

    Dim strElements As New List(Of String)        

    For Each element As Object In elements
        If element.GetType Is GetType(System.String) Then
            strElements.Add(element)
        ElseIf element.GetType Is GetType(System.Collections.Generic.List(Of String)) Then
            For Each s As String In element
                strElements.Add(s)
            Next
        End If
    Next

But if there is a better way to add the individual strings to the ParamArray directly that would be much better

Shevek's answer works great. All you have to do is then pass the list you've created/populated to the method expecting a parmarray as "strElements.ToArray". I just used this to populate a DataGridView with a dynamic number of columns, like this (in a loop, creating a new strElements list for each row of data): dgvData.Rows.Add(strElements.ToArray)