What is the difference between myArray.GetValue(2) and myArray[2] in C#?

Question

Is there any difference between using myArray.GetValue(2) and myArray[2]?

For example:

namespace ConsoleApplication16
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            int[] numbers = new int[] { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
            Console.WriteLine(numbers.GetValue(3));
            Console.WriteLine(numbers[3]);
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

GetValue will return type object while using the index will return the type specific with the array.

You can see in this fiddle (code below) that the variable val1 can have a string stored in it, but val2 can only be used as an integer.

public static void Main()
{
    int[] numbers = new int[]{1, 2, 3, 4};
    var val1 = numbers.GetValue(3);
    var type = val1.GetType();
    var val2 = numbers[3];

    Console.WriteLine(type.ToString());
    val1 = "hello";
    type = val1.GetType();
    Console.WriteLine(type.ToString());
}

This will result in boxing and unboxing, which won't have an effect on a small code snippet, but if used in large scale it could potentially affect performance.