#124 – Declaring and Instantiating Multidimensional Arrays

C# allows declaring arrays of more than one dimension.  Where a 1-dimensional array can be thought of as a simple list of elements, a 2-dimensional array can be thought of as a collection of elements organized into rows and columns.

Here are a couple of examples (remember that all arrays are 0-based):

 // 2-dimensional array
 int[,] hourlyTempsForWeek = new int[7, 24];
 hourlyTempsForWeek[2, 12] = 45;     // Tuesday, 12PM
 hourlyTempsForWeek[6, 23] = 30;     // Saturday, 11PM

 // 3-dimensional array, R/G/B values for each pixel on screen
 byte[, ,] pixelRGBValues = new byte[1024, 768, 3];
 pixelRGBValues[0, 0, 0] = 255;  // R value at (0,0)
 pixelRGBValues[0, 0, 1] = 0;    // G value at (0,0)
 pixelRGBValues[0, 0, 2] = 255;  // B value at (0,0)