Redim Preserve in C#?

Question

I was shocked to find out today that C# does not support dynamic sized arrays. How then does a VB.NET developer used to using ReDim Preserve deal with this in C#?

At the beginning of the function I am not sure of the upper bound of the array. This depends on the rows returned from the database.

Answer 1

VB.NET doesn't have the idea of dynamically sized arrays, either - the CLR doesn't support it.

The equivalent of "Redim Preserve" is Array.Resize<T> - but you must be aware that if there are other references to the original array, they won't be changed at all. For example:

using System;

class Foo
{
    static void Main()
    {
        string[] x = new string[10];
        string[] y = x;

        Array.Resize(ref x, 20);
        Console.WriteLine(x.Length); // Prints out 20
        Console.WriteLine(y.Length); // Still prints out 10
    }
}

Proof that this is the equivalent of Redim Preserve:

Imports System

Class Foo
    Shared Sub Main()
        Dim x(9) as String
        Dim y as String() = x

        Redim Preserve x(19)
        Console.WriteLine(x.Length)
        Console.WriteLine(y.Length)
    End Sub
End Class

The two programs are equivalent.

If you truly want a dynamically sized collection, you should use List<T> (or something similar). There are various issues with using arrays directly - see Eric Lippert's blog post for details. That's not to say you should always avoid them, by any means - but you need to know what you're dealing with.

Answer 2

Use ArrayLists or Generics instead

Answer 3

Use a List<T>. It will dynamically size as needed.

Answer 4

You really shouldn't be using ReDim, it can be very expensive. I prefer List(Of T), but there are many options in this area.

That said, you had a question and here is your answer.

x = (int[]) Utils.CopyArray((Array) x, new int[10]);

Answer 5

I couldn't help but notice that none of the above answers approach the concept of multidimensional arrays. That being said, here's an example. The array in question is predefined as x.

int[,] temp = new int[newRows, newCols];
int minRows = Math.Min(newRows, x.GetUpperBound(0) + 1);
int minCols = Math.Min(newCols, x.GetUpperBound(1) + 1);
for (int i = 0; i < minRows ; ++i)
     for (int j = 0; j < minCols; ++j)
         temp[i, j] = x[i, j];
x = temp;

Answer 6

Just for fun, here's one way to use generics in order to redim/extend a unidimensional array (add one more "row") :

static T[] Redim<T>(T[] arr, bool preserved)
{
    int arrLength = arr.Length;
    T[] arrRedimed = new T[arrLength + 1];
    if (preserved)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < arrLength; i++)
        {
            arrRedimed[i] = arr[i];
        }
    }
    return arrRedimed;
}

And one to add n rows (though this doesn't prevent user from undersizing the array, which will throw an error in the for loop) :

static T[] Redim<T>(T[] arr, bool preserved, int nbRows)
{
    T[] arrRedimed = new T[nbRows];
    if (preserved)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < arr.Length; i++)
        {
            arrRedimed[i] = arr[i];
        }
    }
    return arrRedimed;
}

I'm sure you get the idea.

For a multidimensional array (two dimensions), here's one possibility:

static T[,] Redim<T>(T[,] arr, bool preserved)
{
    int Ubound0 = arr.GetUpperBound(0);
    int Ubound1 = arr.GetUpperBound(1);
    T[,] arrRedimed = new T[Ubound0 + 1, Ubound1];
    if (preserved)
    {
        for (int j = 0; j < Ubound1; j++)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < Ubound0; i++)
            {
                arrRedimed[i, j] = arr[i, j];
            }
        }
    }
    return arrRedimed;
}

In your program, use this with or even without the type specified, the compiler will recognize it :

int[] myArr = new int[10];
myArr = Redim<int>(myArr, true);

or

int[] myArr = new int[10];
myArr = Redim(myArr, true);

Not sure if all this is really relevant though. =D Please feel free to correct me or improve my code. ;)

Answer 7

Even though it's a long time ago it might help someone looking for a simple solution - I found something great in another forum:

//from Applied Microsoft.NET framework Programming - Jeffrey Richter
public static Array RedimPreserve(Array origArray, Int32 desiredSize)
        {
            System.Type t = origArray.GetType().GetElementType();
            Array newArray = Array.CreateInstance(t, desiredSize);
            Array.Copy(origArray, 0, newArray, 0, Math.Min(origArray.Length, desiredSize));
            return newArray;
        }

Source: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/6759816b-d525-4752-a3c8-9eb5f4a5b194/redim-in-c?forum=csharplanguage