methods change variable out of its scope

Question

In this small piece of code, changing a 2 dimensional array inside a method leads to changes the variable in main method.

What is the cause of this and how can I protect the variable in main method to remain unchanged?

using System;

namespace example
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string[,] string_variable = new string[1, 1];
            string_variable[0, 0] = "unchanged";
            Console.Write("Before calling the method string variable is {0}.\n", string_variable[0,0]);
            Function(string_variable);
            Console.Write("Why after calling the method string variable is {0}? I want it remain unchanged.\n", string_variable[0, 0]);
            Console.ReadKey();
        } 
        private static void Function(string [,] method_var)
        {
            method_var[0, 0] ="changed";
            Console.Write("Inside the method string variable is {0}.\n", method_var[0, 0]);
        }
    } 
} 

At the end this is the program output:

Before calling the method string variable is unchanged.
Inside the method string variable is changed.
Why after calling the method string variable is changed? I want it remain unchanged.

EDIT 1: A question come in my mind is : What are other common programming languages that doesn't have this sort of problem?

EDIT 2: For sack of comparison, I write this somehow identical code with string variable instead of array and the output is as expected and is just fine:

using System;
namespace example
{
    class Program
    { 
    static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string string_variable;
            string_variable= "unchanged";
            Console.Write("Before calling the method string variable is {0}.\n", string_variable);
            Function(string_variable);
            Console.Write("after calling the method string variable is {0} as expected.\n", string_variable);
            Console.ReadKey();
        } 
        private static void Function(string method_var)
        {
            method_var ="changed";
            Console.Write("Inside the method string variable is {0}.\n", method_var);
        }
    } 
}   

and the output of this code is :

Before calling the method string variable is unchanged.
Inside the method string variable is changed.
after calling the method string variable is unchanged as expected.

Last EDIT : Thanks everybody for clarification, Hope this will become useful for others in future.

Answer 1

When you pass an array to a method (or any reference type), you're passing a reference to the memory where that array exists. So making a change to the array will behave exactly the same as if you'd made that change in the method in which the array was originally instantiated.

Unfortunately, there's no way to make an array read-only in C#. However, you could create a wrapper class as described here that provides a mechanism for accessing the values in the array, without providing a way to change the array. Then you could pass that wrapper class into Function instead of passing the array itself.

public class ReadOnlyTwoDimensionalArray<T>
{
    private T[,] _arr;
    public ReadOnlyTwoDimensionalArray(T[,] arr)
    {
        _arr = arr;
    }
    public T this[int index1, int index2]
    {
        get {return _arr[index1, index2];}
    }
}

Then:

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        string[,] string_variable = new string[1, 1];
        string_variable[0, 0] = "unchanged";
        Console.Write("Before calling the method string variable is {0}.\n", string_variable[0,0]);
        Function(new ReadOnlyTwoDimensionalArray<string>(string_variable));
        Console.Write("Can't touch this: {0}.\n", string_variable[0, 0]);
        Console.ReadKey();
    } 
    private static void Function(ReadOnlyTwoDimensionalArray<string> method_var)
    {
        // the compiler will complain if you try to do this:
        //method_var[0, 0] ="changed"; 
        // but this works just fine
        Console.Write("Inside the method string variable is {0}.\n", method_var[0, 0]);
    }

Alternatively, you could make sure that you only give Function a copy of the original array. But that obviously has some performance implications.

Response to Edits

The example you give to show how string variables work isn't really equivalent to the original. In that second example, you are changing the value of the variable locally, but that value is just a memory address--you're not actually changing the string itself. You could do the same thing with an array like this:

    private static void Function(string [,] method_var)
    {
        method_var = new string[1, 1] {{"changed"}};
        Console.Write("Inside the method string variable is {0}.\n", method_var[0, 0]);
    }

By doing this, you are changing the value of the method_var variable, not the values in the array that it is pointing to.

Eric Lippert's comments below this post explain very clearly how C/C++ can give you read-only behavior on an array, but won't allow you to change the array's values locally without also changing them in the array that the calling method is referencing. He rightly points out that this is not a limitation of C#: it is a fundamental principle of how memory allocation works. Values passed from one method to another can either be passed by copying all their contents or by just copying a reference to their contents. For small values, you can have a value type, and C# will pass their entire value. For larger values like arrays, it would be expensive and error-prone to copy their entire value, so the language will not attempt to do this automatically--you must do it explicitly.

Answer 2

I'd just simply use Copy() to get a new instance with the same content:

string[,] newArray = new string[1, 1];
Array.Copy(string_variable , 0, newArray, 0, string_variable.Lenght);
Function(newArray);