An array stores a fixed-size sequential collection of elements of the same type. An array is used to store a collection of data, but it is often more useful to think of an array as a collection of variables of the same type stored at contiguous memory locations.
Instead of declaring individual variables, such as number0, number1, ..., and number99, you declare one array variable such as numbers and use numbers[0], numbers[1], and ..., numbers[99] to represent individual variables. A specific element in an array is accessed by an index.
Declaring Arrays
To declare an array in C#, you can use the following syntax −
datatype[] arrayName;
where,
datatype is used to specify the type of elements in the array.
[ ] specifies the rank of the array. The rank specifies the size of the array.
arrayName specifies the name of the array.
For example,
double[] balance;
Initializing an Array
Declaring an array does not initialize the array in the memory. When the array variable is initialized, you can assign values to the array.
Array is a reference type, so you need to use the new keyword to create an instance of the array. For example,
double[] balance = new double[10];
Assigning Values to an Array
You can assign values to individual array elements, by using the index number, like −
double[] balance = new double[10];
balance[0] = 4500.0;
You can assign values to the array at the time of declaration, as shown −
double[] balance = { 2340.0, 4523.69, 3421.0};
