CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#arraysfunction
Pranita Jain
Pranita Jain

Reputation: 73

Receiving an array in a function

 public static void Main()
    {// do something here
    String[] array1d = { "zero", "one", "two", "three" };
        ShowArrayInfo(array1d);
        PrintValues(array1d);
     //do something here
    }
 public static void ShowArrayInfo(Array arr)
    {//do something here}
 public static void PrintValues( string[] myArr )
    {//do something here}

In above code there are two different functions called
1. ShowArrayInfo
2. PrintValues
but the way array is collected in both the functions are different. In one, it is Array arr and in another, it is int[] myArr.

What is the difference between these two ways of collecting array , is arr and myArr are alike? Is arr and myArr reference to original array : array1d ? Can we perform same operations on myArr as what we can perform on arr ?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 368

Answers (3)

Zein Makki
Zein Makki

Reputation: 30062

Arrays are Reference types, if you change elements in an array inside the function, this is reflected in the caller.

Array is like a more generic class for dealing with arrays. check the example below.

Using Array class, arr.GetValue(0) return object and not int.

static void ChangeFirstItemToTen(int[] arr)
{
    arr[0] = 10;
}

static void ChangeFirstItemToTen(Array arr)
{
    arr.SetValue(10, 0);
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    int[] values = new int[] { 5, 6, 7, 8 };
    ChangeFirstItemToTen(values);
    Console.WriteLine(values[0]); // prints 10;
}

Upvotes: 1

Charles Mager
Charles Mager

Reputation: 26233

Per the documentation, Array is the base class for all arrays in the CLR.

You can also see from the documentation that there are far fewer methods and properties available on the base class. There aren't many reasons you'd reference an array using Array instead of T[] (int[], in this case).

In your example, both arr and myArr are references to the same array as array1d. The main difference is the methods and properties available to you (though you could easily cast from one to the other).

Upvotes: 0

Sujeet Sinha
Sujeet Sinha

Reputation: 2433

Array is the base class for all arrays in C#. The only difference in the two methods defined by you is one will accept array of any type and other of type int only. Both will have the 'pass by value' technique.
You can use 'pass by reference' by using the ref keyword.

Upvotes: 0

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