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c#.netarrays
Alexandre
Alexandre

Reputation: 13308

.NET array - difference between "Length", "Count()" and "Rank"

What's the difference between "Length", "Count()" and "Rank" for a .NET array?

Upvotes: 54

Views: 51779

Answers (6)

Fredrik Leijon
Fredrik Leijon

Reputation: 2802

Length is the size of the array.
Count() is the amount of items in the array (from system.linq)
Rank returns the number of dimensions (a[][] = 2, a[] = 1).

Upvotes: 0

Dyppl
Dyppl

Reputation: 12381

Length is the property of an array object and using it is the most effective way to determine the count of elements in the array (Array.Length in MSDN documentation).

Count() is a LINQ extension method that does effectively the same. It applies to arrays because arrays are enumerable objects. It's preferred to use Length, because Count() is likely to be more expensive (see this question for further discussion and MSDN documentation on Count for reference).

Rank is the property that returns the number of dimensions (a different thing entirely). When you declare an array int[,] myArray = new int[5,10];, the Rank of it will be 2, but it will hold a total of 50 elements (MSDN on Rank property).

Upvotes: 65

user541686
user541686

Reputation: 210402

  • Length: Total number of elements in an array
  • LongLength: Same as Length, but returned as long (in case it's >= 231)
  • Count(): LINQ extension method that works with other collection types as well
  • Rank: Number of dimensions in array (always 1 for vectors). Only in .NET 3.5+.
  • GetLength(), GetLongLength(): Length of a certain dimension of an array
  • GetLowerBound(): Starting index of a certain dimension of an array; always 0 for vectors
  • GetUpperBound(): Ending index of a certain dimension of an array; always Length - 1 for vectors

Interestingly, there's no GetLongUpperBound() or GetLongLowerBound()...

Now that we're on the topic, what is the difference between an array and a vector in .NET?

Arrays versus Vectors

Vectors are what you normally call "1D" arrays in C#. However, 1-dimensional arrays are actually not of a type like int[], but they're of the type int[*]. C# doesn't directly support them; however, they can be created with Array.CreateInstance, and can have non-zero lower bounds. They are, however, slightly slower than vectors, because vectors are directly supported in the CLR. Because 1-dimensional arrays are actually rarely used, C# has decided not to support them (although it can use them through the use of the var keyword, from another module which declares them!).

Upvotes: 25

Cheng Chen
Cheng Chen

Reputation: 43523

Length is a property of Array since C# 1.x

Count()is an extension method of IEnumerable<T>, because now every T[] implements IEnumerable<T> implicitly.

Note that for an array, Count() is usually much slower than Length, because accessing Length property is O(1), while Count is for IEnumerable<T>, so the program needs to go through the collection and get its count, that is O(n).

Rank gives the demensions of the array.

Upvotes: 1

Robin Maben
Robin Maben

Reputation: 23054

Well .Count() is for IEnumerable, List or ArrayList types. While Length is for Array.

Rank is to denote the number of dimensions of an array.

Upvotes: 1

user703016
user703016

Reputation: 37945

  • Length is a property returning the number of elements in an Array.
  • Count() is a LINQ extension that does the same on an IEnumerable. Optionally, it can take a predicate as parameter, and will return the number of elements that satisfy it.
  • Rank is a property returning the number of dimensions in an Array.

Upvotes: 2

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