C# is an Object-oriented programming language. C# comes with simplicity, expressiveness and great performance to meet the programmer productivity.
Introduction
So far, we have seen
Chars and Strings in
C#. Let's discuss about arrays and creating arrays in this article.
Objective
The main objective of this article is to learn arrays of both Chars and Strings and also default element initialization of arrays in
C# programming.
Array
Array is a fixed number of variables of particular type which are called as
Array Elements. These elements provides high efficient access and always stored in a contiguous block of memory.
Declaration of Array:
Array's are denoted square braces after the type of the element and declared as below,
char[] array = new array[4] // This is the array with 4 elements
We can access the particular element of an
array by using the
index of an array.
'Indexes' of array starts at 0.
array[0] = 'a1';
array[1] = 'a2';
array[2] = 'a3';
array[3] = 'a4';
Console.WriteLine(array[2]) // prints 'a3'
Methods of declarations:
Let's have a simple example code with clear explanation,
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Man
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
char[] Alphabets = new char[4];
Alphabets[0] = 'A';
Alphabets[1] = 'B';
Alphabets[2] = 'C';
Alphabets[3] = 'D';
Console.WriteLine(Alphabets[1]); // Prints B as index starts with 0
}
}
}
The above code illustrates an array of 'Alphabets' with four elements. This prints 'B' in the Console as its index is 1.
Other ways of declaring an array are,
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Man
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
char[] Alphabets = new char[4] { 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D' };
Console.WriteLine(Alphabets[1]); // Prints B as its index is 1
char[] Numbers = { '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9' };
Console.WriteLine(Numbers[5]); // Prints 6 as its index is 5
}
}
}
In the above code we have two more methods of array declarations which performs the same functionality.
Using for loop:
We can use
for loop to iterate through each element in the
array.
Ex:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Man
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
char[] Alphabets = new char[4] { 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D' };
for (int i = 0; i < Alphabets.Length; i++)
Console.WriteLine(Alphabets[i]); // Prints A B C D vertically as we used WriteLine
}
}
}
In the above code, we are using for loop which iterates the entire Alphabets array. This will prints all the array elements in the Console like below,
And if we use Console.Write instead of Console.WriteLine,
Arrays with Strings
We can also create an array with strings as we did for the char's above. Observe the below example of strings,
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Man
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
string[] fruits = new string[5];
fruits[0] = "Apple";
fruits[1] = "Banana";
fruits[2] = "Mango";
fruits[3] = "Orange";
fruits[4] = "Pineapple";
Console.WriteLine(fruits[2]); // Prints Mango
Console.WriteLine(fruits[0]); // Prints Apple
}
}
}
In the above code, we have created an array of fruits with 5 elements (fruit names).
Output of the above code will be,
Other ways of declaring strings are,
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Man
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
string[] fruits = new string[5] { "Apple", "Banana", "Mango", "Orange", "Pineapple" };
Console.WriteLine(fruits[3]); // Prints Orange
Console.WriteLine(fruits[2]); // Prints Mango
string[] flowers = { "Rose", "Jasmine", "Lily", "Sunflower" };
Console.WriteLine(flowers[0]); // Prints Rose
Console.WriteLine(flowers[2]); // Prints Lily
}
}
}
Similar to char's, the other ways of declaring string array's are shown in the above code.
Output of the above example code is,
Default Element Initialization
Initially an array initializes its elements with default values. Default value means the result of a bitwise zeroing of memory.
Let's consider an example below,
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Man
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
int[] a = new int[100];
Console.WriteLine(a[23]); // Prints 0 as a default value
Console.WriteLine(a[52]); // Prints 0 as a default value
}
}
}
In the above example code, we have created an array with 100 elements which doesn't has any values. It prints 0 in the Console as the default value for each element will be 0.
Value Types:
We have already discussed about
value types in the previous chapters. When the array element type is a value type, each element value is allocated as part of an array.
Ex:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Man
{
class Program
{
public struct Array
{
public int A, B;
}
static void Main()
{
Array[] a = new Array[100];
int c = a[50].A;
Console.WriteLine(c); // Prints 0
}
}
}
Above code prints 0 in the Console as following,
Reference Types:
We have already seen about
reference types in previous chapters. Creating an array with reference type would have merely multiple null references.
Ex:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Man
{
class Program
{
public class Array
{
public int A, B;
}
static void Main()
{
Array[] a = new Array[100];
int c = a[50].A;
Console.WriteLine(c); // Null reference Exception occurs
}
}
}
This code will throw a NullReferenceException in the Console as following,
To avoid this error, we have to instantiate all the Array elements explicitly after instantiating the array. We can use for loop to do that. Example,
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Man
{
class Program
{
public class Array
{
public int A, B;
}
static void Main()
{
Array[] a = new Array[10];
for (int i = 0; i < a.Length; i++) // Iterates i from 0 to 9
{
a[i] = new Array(); // Sets array element i with the new point (array)
Console.WriteLine(a); // Prints 10 values of array elements
}
}
}
}
In the above code, for loop iterates all the array elements from 0 to 9 as length of the array mentioned is 10.
Note: Please read the comments in the code.
Now the output will shows the 10 array elements as following,
Conclusion
In this article, we have studied creating arrays of chars and strings and also default element initialization of arrays in C#. Hope you understand.
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Krishna.