GetUpperBound() and GetLowerBound() function for array

Question

Can anyone please tell what does the two functions do? They take an integer argument which is told to be dimension. But how does the value of this integer changes the output?

Below is an example which I ran.

int[, ,] intMyArr = {{{ 7, 1, 3, 4 }, { 2, 9, 6, 5 } }, { { 7, 1, 3, 4 }, { 2, 9, 6, 5 }}};
Console.WriteLine(intMyArr.GetUpperBound(0));       // Output is 1
Console.WriteLine(intMyArr.GetUpperBound(1));       // Output is 1
Console.WriteLine(intMyArr.GetUpperBound(2));       // Output is 3

Console.WriteLine(intMyArr.GetLowerBound(0));       // Output is 0
Console.WriteLine(intMyArr.GetLowerBound(1));       // Output is 0
Console.WriteLine(intMyArr.GetLowerBound(2));       // Output is 0

Any idea why GetLowerBound() is always returning 0? If this always returns 0 then why do we need to call this method?

Answer 1

The integer parameter to GetUpper/LowerBound() specifies the dimension.

Some examples:

// One-dimensional array
var oneD = new object[5];
Console.WriteLine("Dimension 0 Lower bound: {0}", oneD.GetLowerBound(0)) // Outputs "Dimension 0 Lower bound: 0"
Console.WriteLine("Dimension 0 Upper bound: {0}", oneD.GetUpperBound(0)) // Outputs "Dimension 0 Upper bound: 4"

// Two-dimensional array
var twoD = new object[5,10];
Console.WriteLine("Dimension 0 Lower bound: {0}", twoD.GetLowerBound(0)) // Outputs "Lower bound: 0"
Console.WriteLine("Dimension 0 Upper bound: {0}", twoD.GetUpperBound(0)) // Outputs "Upper bound: 4"
Console.WriteLine("Dimension 1 Lower bound: {0}", twoD.GetLowerBound(1)) // Outputs "Lower bound: 0"
Console.WriteLine("Dimension 1 Upper bound: {0}", twoD.GetUpperBound(1)) // Outputs "Upper bound: 9"

Whilst arrays defined within C# have lower bound = 0 and upper bound = length - 1, arrays from other sources (e.g. COM interop) can have different bounds, so those working with Excel interop for example will be familiar with arrays that have lower bound = 1, upper bound = length.

Answer 2

May be some examples make the topic clear for you

We use GetUpperBound() to find out the upper bound of an array for given dimension, like that:

  int[,,] A = new int[7, 9, 11];
  // Returns 6: 0th dimension has 7 items, and so upper bound is 7 - 1 = 6;
  int upper0 = A.GetUpperBound(0); 
  // Returns 8: 0th dimension has 7 items, 1st - 9 and so upper bound is 9 - 1 = 8;
  int upper1 = A.GetUpperBound(1); 
  // Returns 10: 0th dimension has 7 items, 1st - 9, 2nd - 11 and so upper bound is 11 - 1 = 10;
  int upper2 = A.GetUpperBound(2); 

usually, GetLowerBound() returns 0, since arrays are zero-based by default, but in some rare cases they are not:

  // A is [17..21] array: 5 items starting from 17
  Array A = Array.CreateInstance(typeof(int), new int[] { 5 }, new int[] { 17 });
  // Returns 17
  int lower = A.GetLowerBound(0); 
  // Returns 21
  int upper = A.GetUpperBound(0); 

Typical loop using GetLowerBound and GetUpperBound is

  int[] A = ...

  for(int i = A.GetLowerBound(0); i <= A.GetUpperBound(0); ++i) {
    int item = A[i];
    ...
  }

  // ... or multidimension

  int[,,] A = ...;

  for (int i = A.GetLowerBound(0); i <= A.GetUpperBound(0); ++i)
    for (int j = A.GetLowerBound(1); j <= A.GetUpperBound(1); ++j)
      for (int k = A.GetLowerBound(2); k <= A.GetUpperBound(2); ++k) {
        int item = A[i, j, k];
        ...
      }