title: List.ToArray() - why is the array empty?
body: <p>I'm writing a serializable object that contains a collection. So, in order to be able to add and remove items from that collection, I added methods that would first convert the collection from an Array into a List, add or remove the items and then convert the List back into a Array.</p>
  
  <pre><code>public void AddElement(Element element) {
     List&lt;Element&gt; list = new List&lt;Element&gt;(this.elements);
     list.Add(element);
     this.elements = list.ToArray();
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there maybe a problem creating the List like this?</p>
  
  <p>List(<strong>this.elements</strong>)</p>
  
  <p>Or is it a problem, that the Array is Length is 0 at start?</p>
  
  <p>EDIT1: converting from a list field also leaves an empty array.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT2: XML Serialization is not wanted.</p>