C# System.Array How to Count or Find How Many Dimensions It Has?

Question

If I have an unknown array as a System.Array, how can I find how many dimensions it has? I'm thinking of something that could be called like Array.GetDimensionCount()

For example if I am building an extension method on the System.Array class and I want to validate that the arrayDimensionIndex is not greater or equal than the number of dimensions the array has, I want to throw an ArgumentOutOfRangeException

    /// <summary>
    /// Determines whether the value of the specified arrayIndex is within 
    /// the bounds of this instance for the specified dimension.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="instance">The instance of the array to check.</param>
    /// <param name="arrayDimensionIndex">Index of the array dimension.</param>
    /// <param name="arrayIndex">The arrayIndex.</param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    /// <exception cref="System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException">
    /// If arrayDimensionIndex exceeds the number of dimesnions in the array.
    /// </exception>
    public static bool IsInBounds(this Array instance, int arrayDimensionIndex, int arrayIndex)
    {
        // Determine if this instance has more dimension than the specified array dimension to check.
        if(instance.Get?????() <= arrayDimensionIndex)
        {
            throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException();
        }

        // Get the length of the dimension specifed
        int arraDimensionLength = instance.GetLength(arrayDimensionIndex);

        // Check if the value is withing the array bounds
        bool isInBounds = ((uint)arrayIndex < arraDimensionLength);

        // Return the result
        return isInBounds;
    }

Thanks.

Answer 1

The key word you're looking for is Rank. Use the Rank property to find out how many dimensions your array has.

Answer 2

Are you looking for Array.Rank?

The property will return the number of dimensions in the array. The value 1 will be returned for a single dimension array, etc.

You can then call Array.GetLength() to determine the length of each dimension.

Answer 3

You should be able to use Rank. Array.Rank specifically. Here's the MSDN info for it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.array.rank(v=vs.110).aspx

Answer 4

If you have a function that accepts arrays of any dimension, and you need to know how many dimensions it has before you cast it, you can use:

array.GetType().GetArrayRank()