YouTipCsharp Multi Dimensional Arrays
# C# Multi-dimensional Arrays
[ C# Array](#)
C# supports multi-dimensional arrays. Multi-dimensional arrays are also called rectangular arrays.
You can declare a two-dimensional array of string variables as follows:
string [,] names;
Or, you can declare a three-dimensional array of int variables as follows:
int [ , , ] m;
## Two-Dimensional Arrays
The simplest form of a multi-dimensional array is the two-dimensional array. A two-dimensional array, in essence, is a list of one-dimensional arrays.
A two-dimensional array can be thought of as a table with x rows and y columns. The following is a two-dimensional array containing 3 rows and 4 columns:
Thus, each element in the array is identified by an element name of the form a[ i , j ], where a is the array name, and i and j are the subscripts that uniquely identify each element in a.
### Initializing a Two-Dimensional Array
Multi-dimensional arrays can be initialized by specifying values for each row within curly braces. Here is an array with 3 rows and 4 columns.
int [,] a = new int [3,4] { {0, 1, 2, 3} , /* Initialize row index 0 */ {4, 5, 6, 7} , /* Initialize row index 1 */ {8, 9, 10, 11} /* Initialize row index 2 */};
### Accessing Two-Dimensional Array Elements
An element in a two-dimensional array is accessed by using the subscripts (i.e., row index and column index of the array). For example:
int val = a[2,3];
The above statement will fetch the 4th element from the 3rd row of the array. You can verify the above diagram. Let us look at the program below, where we will use a nested loop to handle a two-dimensional array:
## Example
using System;
namespace ArrayApplication
{
class MyArray
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
/* An array with 5 rows and 2 columns */
int[,] a =new int[5, 2]{{0,0}, {1,2}, {2,4}, {3,6}, {4,8}};
int i, j;
/* Output the value of each array element */
for(i =0; i <5; i++)
{
for(j =0; j <2; j++)
{
Console.WriteLine("a[{0},{1}] = {2}", i, j, a[i,j]);
}
}
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result:
a[0,0]: 0 a[0,1]: 0 a[1,0]: 1 a[1,1]: 2 a[2,0]: 2 a[2,1]: 4 a[3,0]: 3 a[3,1]: 6 a[4,0]: 4 a[4,1]: 8
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