An array stores a fixed-size sequential collection of elements of the same type. It is used to store a collection of data of the same type stored at contiguous memory locations.
The array can be declared using the following syntax.
datatype[] arrayName;
In C# the arrays have fixed length, which is set at the time of their instantiation and determines the total number of elements. Once the length of an array is set we cannot change it anymore.
You can declare an array in C# in the following way.
int[] myArray;
In the above example, the variable myArray is the name of the array, which is of integer type int[].
In C# we create an array with the help of the keyword new, which is used to allocate memory.
int[] myArray = new int[6];
In this example, we allocate an array with a length of 6 elements of type int. In the heap, an area of 6 integer numbers is allocated and they all are initialized with the value 0.
Before using an element of a given array, it has to be initialized or to have a default value. In C# all variables, including the elements of arrays have a default initial value. This value is either 0 for the numeral types or its equivalent for the non-primitive types (for example null for a reference type and false for the bool type).
You can also set initial values explicitly.
int[] myArray = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 };
string[] daysOfWeek = { "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday", "Sunday" };
You can access the array elements directly using their indices. Each element can be accessed through the name of the array and the element's index (a consecutive number) placed in the brackets. We can access given elements of the array both for reading and for writing, which means we can treat elements as variables.
myArray[index] = 100;
In the example above we set a value of 100 to the element, which is at the position index. The following example will print the value located at the 4th location of an array.
Console.WriteLine(myArray[3]);
All the examples related to the arrays are available in the Arrays.cs file of the source code. Download the source code and try out all the examples for better understanding.