Arrays as Objects (C# Programming Guide)

  • Article

In C#, arrays are actually objects, and not just addressable regions of contiguous memory as in C and C++. Array is the abstract base type of all array types. You can use the properties, and other class members, that Array has. An example of this would be using the Length property to get the length of an array. The following code assigns the length of the numbers array, which is 5, to a variable called lengthOfNumbers:

int[] numbers = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };
int lengthOfNumbers = numbers.Length;

The Array class provides many other useful methods and properties for sorting, searching, and copying arrays.

Example

This example uses the Rank property to display the number of dimensions of an array.

class TestArraysClass
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // Declare and initialize an array: 
        int[,] theArray = new int[5, 10];
        System.Console.WriteLine("The array has {0} dimensions.", theArray.Rank);
    }
}
// Output: The array has 2 dimensions.

See Also

Reference

Arrays (C# Programming Guide)

Single-Dimensional Arrays (C# Programming Guide)

Multidimensional Arrays (C# Programming Guide)

Jagged Arrays (C# Programming Guide)

Concepts

C# Programming Guide