All about Arrays in C#—Jagged Arrays

Visual C# Tutorials

C# Tutorials

All about Arrays in C# Arrays § Types of Arrays An Array As an Object 1-D, Rectangular Arrays § Instantiate a 1D or Rectangular Array Access Array Elements Initialize an Array § Jagged Arrays § Declare a Jagged Array Shortcut Instantiation Instantiate Jagged Array Sub-Arrays Compare Rectangular and Jagged Arrays The foreach Statement § Array Covariance Inherited Array Members § Compare Array Types

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© 2006 Christian Gross

Jagged Arrays

A jagged array is an array of arrays. Unlike rectangular arrays, the sub-arrays of a jagged array can have different numbers of elements.

For example, the following code declares a two-dimensional jagged array. The array’s layout in memory is shown in Figure 14-10.

• The length of the first dimension is 3.

• The declaration can be read as "jagArr is an array of three arrays of ints."

• Notice that the figure shows four array objects—one for the top-level array, and three for the sub-arrays.

// Declare and create top-level array.
int[][] jagArr = new int[3][];
 
// Declare and create sub-arrays. 
...

Figure 14-10. A jagged array is an array of arrays.