Fill one row of a two-dimensional array with a single-dimensional array

Question

I'm building a two-dimensional array of data. I'd like to set the first row of this array to the contents of a one-dimensional array with the proper number of columns, like this:

private string[] GetHeaders() {
    return new string[] { "First Name", "Last Name", "Phone" };
}

private void BuildDataArray(IEnumerable<Person> rows) {
    var data = new string[rows.Count() + 1, 3];

    // This statement is invalid, but it's roughly what I want to do:
    data[0] = GetHeaders();

    var i = 1;
    foreach (var row in rows) {
        data[i, 0] = row.First;
        data[i, 1] = row.Last;
        data[i, 2] = row.Phone;
        i++;
    }
}

Basically, I'd like a simpler way to fill the first row rather than needing to iterate over each item like I do with the rows elements.

Is there a C# idiom for doing this?

Any particular reason you are using arrays? This is simple with List<T>. — BradleyDotNET
– BradleyDotNET, Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 22:00
It would be easy if you used jagged array instead of multidimensional one. — MarcinJuraszek
– MarcinJuraszek, Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 22:03
@BradleyDotNET I need to pass the array to some existing code that only accepts object[,]. I will probably rewrite that function to use List<T> since it would make a lot of things easier, but first I'm curious whether this is possible. — Steve Nay
– Steve Nay, Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 22:06
Fair enough. I don't think there is, but I've been wrong before :) — BradleyDotNET
– BradleyDotNET, Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 22:06

rodrigogq · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-25 22:09:31Z

1

You should change your syntax:

var data = new string[rows.Count()][];

// This should be valid, an array of arrays
data[0] = GetHeaders();

var i = 1;
foreach (var row in rows) {
    data[i][0] = row.First;
    data[i][1] = row.Last;
    data[i][2] = row.Phone;
    i++;
}

answered Nov 25, 2014 at 22:09

rodrigogq

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1 Comment

Steve Nay Over a year ago

We should note that you must initialize data[i] on every iteration of the foreach (not necessary before), but otherwise this code does what I need. Thanks!

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