October 17, 2021

Programmingempire

This article describes Methods of Array Class in C#. Basically, the Array class is contained in the library of the .NET framework and provides functionalities for supporting arrays in C#. In general, the Array class contains methods to create arrays. Moreover, it also provides methods to perform certain operations on arrays.

Creating an Array

In order to create an array using the Array class, we can use its static method CreateInstance(). Basically, this method takes the type of array, and its length as parameters and returns an instance of the corresponding array. However, this method has five more overloads. The following example shows the use of the CreateInstance() method.

Array arr1 = Array.CreateInstance(typeof(System.Int32), 6);

Likewise, we can create a 2D array using another overload of the CreateInstance() method as follows. Here we need to specify the size of both dimensions.

Array m1 = Array.CreateInstance(typeof(System.Int32), 2, 3);

Assigning Values to an Array and Retrieving Values

In order to assign the value to an array element, we can use the SetValue() method. This method takes the value to be assigned and the corresponding index as its two parameters. The following example shows the use of this method.

arr1.SetValue(23, 0);

Similarly, we can assign a value to an element of a 2D array as follows. Basically, it assigns the value 23 to the 0^thelement.

m1.SetValue(i + j, i, j);

where i, and j represent the index of the array element. Similarly, we can retrieve an element of an array by using the GetValue() method. The following code shows an example of a 1D as well as a 2D array.

//Retrieving value from a 1D array

arr1.GetValue(i)


//Retrieving value from a 2D array

m1.GetValue(i, j)

// here i, and j represent the index of the element being accessed

Sorting an Array

Further, the Array class contains the Sort() method to sort the elements of the array like the following example shows.

//Sorting Array
Array.Sort(arr1);

Reversing an Array

Similarly, we can reverse the elements of the array like the following example shows.

//Reversing Array
Array.Reverse(arr1);

The Complete Program to Demonstrate Methods of Array Class

using System;

namespace ArrayClassDemo
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Creating an object of the Array class...");
            Array arr1 = Array.CreateInstance(typeof(System.Int32), 6);

            arr1.SetValue(23, 0);
            arr1.SetValue(67, 1);
            arr1.SetValue(47, 2);
            arr1.SetValue(98, 3);
            arr1.SetValue(239, 4);
            arr1.SetValue(57, 5);
            Console.WriteLine("1D Array...");
            for(int i=0;i<arr1.Length;i++)
            {
                Console.Write(arr1.GetValue(i)+" ");
            }
            //Sorting Array
            Array.Sort(arr1);
            Console.WriteLine("\nSorted 1D Array...");
            for (int i = 0; i < arr1.Length; i++)
            {
                Console.Write(arr1.GetValue(i)+" ");
            }

            //Reversing Array
            Array.Reverse(arr1);
            Console.WriteLine("\nReversed 1D Array...");
            for (int i = 0; i < arr1.Length; i++)
            {
                Console.Write(arr1.GetValue(i) + " ");
            }
            // Creating a 2D array
            Array m1 = Array.CreateInstance(typeof(System.Int32), 2, 3);

            for(int i=0;i<2;i++)
            {
                for (int j = 0; j<3;j++)
                {
                    m1.SetValue(i + j, i, j);
                }
            }
            Console.WriteLine("\n2D Array...");
            for(int i = 0; i <= m1.GetUpperBound(0); i++)
            {
                for(int j=0;j<=m1.GetUpperBound(1);j++)
                {
                    Console.Write(m1.GetValue(i, j) + " ");
                }
                Console.WriteLine();
            }

            
        }
    }
}

Output

Programmingempire

Creating an Array

Assigning Values to an Array and Retrieving Values

Sorting an Array

Reversing an Array

The Complete Program to Demonstrate Methods of Array Class

Further Reading

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