What's better in regards to performance? type[,] or type[][]?

Question

Is it more performant to have a bidimensional array (type[,]) or an array of arrays (type[][]) in C#?

Particularly for initial allocation and item access

Answer 1

Of course, if all else fails... test it! Following gives (in "Release", at the console):

Size 1000, Repeat 1000
    int[,] set: 3460
    int[,] get: 4036 (chk=1304808064)
    int[][] set: 2441
    int[][] get: 1283 (chk=1304808064)

So a jagged array is quicker, at least in this test. Interesting! However, it is a relatively small factor, so I would still stick with whichever describes my requirement better. Except for some specific (high CPU/processing) scenarios, readability / maintainability should trump a small performance gain. Up to you, though.

Note that this test assumes you access the array much more often than you create it, so I have not included timings for creation, where I would expect rectangular to be slightly quicker unless memory is highly fragmented.

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
static class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("First is just for JIT...");
        Test(10,10);
        Console.WriteLine("Real numbers...");
        Test(1000,1000);

        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    static void Test(int size, int repeat)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Size {0}, Repeat {1}", size, repeat);
        int[,] rect = new int[size, size];
        int[][] jagged = new int[size][];
        for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
        { // don't count this in the metrics...
            jagged[i] = new int[size];
        }
        Stopwatch watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
        for (int cycle = 0; cycle < repeat; cycle++)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
            {
                for (int j = 0; j < size; j++)
                {
                    rect[i, j] = i * j;
                }
            }
        }
        watch.Stop();
        Console.WriteLine("\tint[,] set: " + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds);

        int sum = 0;
        watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
        for (int cycle = 0; cycle < repeat; cycle++)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
            {
                for (int j = 0; j < size; j++)
                {
                    sum += rect[i, j];
                }
            }
        }
        watch.Stop();
        Console.WriteLine("\tint[,] get: {0} (chk={1})", watch.ElapsedMilliseconds, sum);

        watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
        for (int cycle = 0; cycle < repeat; cycle++)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
            {
                for (int j = 0; j < size; j++)
                {
                    jagged[i][j] = i * j;
                }
            }
        }
        watch.Stop();
        Console.WriteLine("\tint[][] set: " + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds);

        sum = 0;
        watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
        for (int cycle = 0; cycle < repeat; cycle++)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
            {
                for (int j = 0; j < size; j++)
                {
                    sum += jagged[i][j];
                }
            }
        }
        watch.Stop();
        Console.WriteLine("\tint[][] get: {0} (chk={1})", watch.ElapsedMilliseconds, sum);
    }
}

Answer 2

I believe that [,] can allocate one contiguous chunk of memory, while [][] is N+1 chunk allocations where N is the size of the first dimension. So I would guess that [,] is faster on initial allocation.

Access is probably about the same, except that [][] would involve one extra dereference. Unless you're in an exceptionally tight loop it's probably a wash. Now, if you're doing something like image processing where you are referencing between rows rather than traversing row by row, locality of reference will play a big factor and [,] will probably edge out [][] depending on your cache size.

As Marc Gravell mentioned, usage is key to evaluating the performance...