How to get rid of vertical space before and behind the lists

Question

I cannot get rid of the vertical space before and behind the lists. I have code like below:

\begin{list}{-}{%
  \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt}
  \setlength{\parskip}{0pt}
  \setlength{\parsep}{0pt}
}    
  \item First item
  \item Second item
\end{list}

Answer 1

I answered this at stackexchange where you originally posted (below). I tried the suggested use of `\setlength{tosep}{0pt} but don't know if it's what you want. It seems that that eliminates space in between list items but not before and after lists themselves, but I could be wrong. My solution below may be hackish (or maybe not...), but it leaves no space between a previous paragraph, the itemized list, the items themselves, or the following paragraph.

---

Itemize without itemizing...

Some text that is here and I want to see what it does. \\
  \indent$\bullet$\,first item \\
  \indent$\bullet$\,second item \\
Some text that is here and I want to see what it does.

Replace $\bullet$ with whatever you want.

\indent- first item\\
\indent$\cdot$\,first item\\
\indent$\circ$\,first item\\
\indent$\ast$\,first item\\

The "-" seems to work fine with the whitespace as shown but the rest need the trailing \, which inserts a space between the math symbol and the next word. Without it there will be no space between the "bullet" and the text that follows.

Answer 2

Add \setlength{\topsep}{0pt} to the list parameters. You could also use the enumitem package which offers a nolistsep option for the list environments.