C# Jagged Arrays

C# Arrays

A jagged array is an array of arrays.

A jagged array is a one-dimensional array.

You can declare a jagged array named scores with int values as follows:

int [][] scores;

Declaring an array does not create the array in memory. To create the array above:

int[][] scores = new int[5][];
for (int i = 0; i < scores.Length; i++) 
{
   scores[i] = new int[4];
}

You can initialize a jagged array as follows:

int[][] scores = new int[2][]{new int[]{92,93,94},new int[]{85,66,87,88}};

Here, scores is an array consisting of two integer arrays -- scores[0] is an array with 3 integers, and scores[1] is an array with 4 integers.

Example

The following example demonstrates how to use jagged arrays:

using System;

namespace ArrayApplication
{
    class MyArray
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            /* A jagged array consisting of 5 integer arrays */
            int[][] a = new int[][]{new int[]{0,0},new int[]{1,2}, 
            new int[]{2,4},new int[]{ 3, 6 }, new int[]{ 4, 8 } }; 

            int i, j;

            /* Output the values of each element in the array */
            for (i = 0; i < 5; i++)
            {
                for (j = 0; j < 2; j++)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("a[{0}][{1}] = {2}", i, j, a[i][j]);
                }
            }
           Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result:

a[0][0] = 0
a[0][1] = 0
a[1][0] = 1
a[1][1] = 2
a[2][0] = 2
a[2][1] = 4
a[3][0] = 3
a[3][1] = 6
a[4][0] = 4
a[4][1] = 8

C# Arrays