Two Dimensional Array Element Limit?

Stephen Golden

I'm trying to load a 2 dimensional array with the first dimension containing the characters 1-12 and the second the characters 1-31.
    string[,] holiDays = new string[,] {{ "1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8",
            "9","10","11","12" },{ "1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9","10",
                "11","12","13","14","15","16","17","18","19","20","21","22",
                "23","24","25","26","27","28","29","30","31" }};
I get the folowing error:
Invalid rank specifier: expected ',' or ']' (CS0178)

If I trim each of the array dimension values to seven, the error goes away.   As soon as I add the eighth value in either dimension, the error returns.

For example, this gets no error:
    string[,] holiDay2 = new string[,] {{ "1","2","3","4","5","6","7"},
{ "1","2","3","4","5","6","7"}};

These get the error:
    string[,] holiDay2 = new string[,] {{ "1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8"},
{ "1","2","3","4","5","6","7"}};

    string[,] holiDay2 = new string[,] {{ "1","2","3","4","5","6","7"},
{ "1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8"}};

Any ideas on this?

2 Replies

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Stephen Golden18y ago
Thank you very much for the help! I guess this is one place where VB.NET has it over on C#. Supposedly, you can perform this array initialization in VB.NET using one statement:
```
Dim Holidays ( 1 to 12, 1 to 31 ) as String
```
Thanks again!
Alan18y ago
If the dimensions are of unequal length then you need to create a 'jagged' array rather than a rectangular array.

For example:

     string[][] holidays = new string[2][];
     holidays[0] = new string[12]{"1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9","10","11","12"};
     holidays[1] = new string[31]{ "1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9","10",
                "11","12","13","14","15","16","17","18","19","20","21","22",
                "23","24","25","26","27","28","29","30","31" };

     Console.WriteLine(holidays[1][11]); // 12

A neater way of doing the initialization would be like this:

     string[][] holidays = new string[2][];
     holidays[0] = new string[12];
     holidays[1] = new string[31];

     for (int i = 1; i < 13 ; i++)
     {
         holidays[0][i-1] = i.ToString();
     }

     for (int i = 1; i < 32 ; i++)
     {
         holidays[1][i-1] = i.ToString();
     }

     Console.WriteLine(holidays[1][11]); // 12