Split string into string array of single characters

I want to something as simple as turning "this is a test" into

new string[] {"t","h","i","s"," ","i","s"," ","a"," ","t","e","s","t"}

Would I really have to do something like

test = "this is a test".Select(x => x.ToString()).ToArray();

edit: To clarify, I don't want a char array, ideally I want an array of string. I don't really see anything wrong with the above code except for the fact that I would think there is an easier way.

I believe this is what you're looking for:

char[] characters = "this is a test".ToCharArray();

Strings in C# already have a char indexer

string test = "this is a test";
Console.WriteLine(test[0]);

And...

if(test[0] == 't')
  Console.WriteLine("The first letter is 't'");

This works too...

Console.WriteLine("this is a test"[0]);

And this...

foreach (char c in "this is a test")
  Console.WriteLine(c);

> EDIT:

I noticed the question was updated with regards to char[] arrays. If you must have a string[] array, here's how you split a string at each character in c#:

string[] test = Regex.Split("this is a test", string.Empty);

foreach (string s in test)
{
  Console.WriteLine(s);
}

Simple!!
one line:

 var res = test.Select(x => new string(x, 1)).ToArray();

You can just use String.ToCharArray() and then treat each char as a string in your code.

Here's an example:

	foreach (char c in s.ToCharArray())
		Debug.Log("one character ... " +c);

Try this:

var charArray = "this is a test".ToCharArray().Select(c=>c.ToString());

Most likely you're looking for the ToCharArray() method. However, you will need to do slightly more work if a string[] is required, as you noted in your post.

    string str = "this is a test.";
    char[] charArray = str.ToCharArray();
    string[] strArray = str.Select(x => x.ToString()).ToArray();

Edit: If you're worried about the conciseness of the conversion, I suggest you make it into an extension method.

public static class StringExtensions
{
    public static string[] ToStringArray(this string s)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(s))
            return null;

        return s.Select(x => x.ToString()).ToArray();
    }
} 

Convert the message to a character array, then use a for loop to change it to a string

string message = "This Is A Test";
string[] result = new string[message.Length];
char[] temp = new char[message.Length];

temp = message.ToCharArray();

for (int i = 0; i < message.Length - 1; i++)
{
     result[i] = Convert.ToString(temp[i]);
}

string input = "this is a test";
string[] afterSplit = input.Split();

foreach (var word in afterSplit)
	Console.WriteLine(word);

Result:

this
is
a
test