Why doesn't the foreach recognize the string array as an array

Question

I have this code:

private readonly string[,] sSOMETHING = new string[,]
{
 {"ONE", "TWO", "THREE"},
 {"FOUR", "FIVE", "SIX"}
};
...
foreach (string[] sELSE in sSOMETHING)
{
 ...
}

I get an error in the foreach that it cannot convert string to string[] when it's obvious the sSOMETHING is an array. Why doesn't it recognize the string array as an array? Do foreach have problems with multidimentional arrays?

Answer 1

You are creating 2D array, not the jagged array of array. Change declaration to the following:

private readonly string[][] sSOMETHING = new string[][]
{
 new []{"ONE", "TWO", "THREE"},
 new []{"FOUR", "FIVE", "SIX"}
};

• Simon Whitehead: ...or, iterate the "old-fashioned" way :)

Answer 2

Compiler is rightly complaining. To use the foreach syntax you would either need to convert it to array of arrays (string[][]) or access it using for loop by getting its dimensions:

Use the below syntax to access all the elements in the multi-dimensional array as if it was flattened

foreach (string sELSE in sSOMETHING) {
 Console.Write(sELSE);
}

or use something like

for (int i = 0; i < sSOMETHING.GetLength(0); ++i) {
 for (int j = 0; j < sSOMETHING.GetLength(1); ++j) {
 Console.Write(sSOMETHING[i, j]);
 }
}