C# Serializable Multidimensional Arrays

Unity Engine
1

I’m trying to create a multi-dimensional array that I can edit in the inspector, and was told to use a serializable class containing my array.

This is what I tried:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

[System.Serializable]
public class MDIntArray
{
    public int[] intArray;
}

public class TestScript : MonoBehaviour {
    public MDIntArray[] mdIntArr;
    int[] ia = mdIntArr[0].intArray;
    //print (ia[0]);
}

I then get the error in the console:

What am I missing?

EDIT: I think i found a solution How to declare a multidimensional array of strings in c#? - Questions & Answers - Unity Discussions

2 
public class TestScript : MonoBehaviour {
    public MDIntArray[] mdIntArr;
    int[] ia;

    void Start(){
         ia = mdIntArr[0].intArray = new int[TheSizeYouNeed];
         print (ia[0]);
    }
}
3

This isn’t about serializing or anything- you can’t initialize a variable to a value that’s based on another (non-static) variable in a field initializer. That means that:

int[] ia = mdIntArr[0].intArray;

simply won’t work. I’m sure someone can give an explanation that details compile-time type integrity or some such thing, but if you want to initialize to some variable value in that way, you need to do it in a constructor or an Awake/Start function and not as a field initialization.

1 Like
4

Yeah, I figured out as much.

Now I have issues with putting the returned item into a int[ ] object

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;

[System.Serializable]
public class MultidimensionalString {
    public string[] stringArray = new string[0];

    public string this[int index] {
        get {
            return stringArray[index];
        }
   
        set {
            stringArray[index] = value;
        }
    }

    public int Length {
        get {
            return stringArray.Length;
        }
    }

    public long LongLength {
        get {
            return stringArray.LongLength;
        }
    }

}


[System.Serializable]
public class MDIntArray
{
    public int[] intArray = new int[0];

    public int this[int index] {
        get {
            return intArray[index];
        }
   
        set {
            intArray[index] = value;
        }
    }

    public int Length {
        get {
            return intArray.Length;
        }
    }

    public long LongLength {
        get {
            return intArray.LongLength;
        }
    }
}

public class TestScript : MonoBehaviour {
    public MDIntArray[] mdIntArr = new MDIntArray[0];

    int[] intArr;
    //int[] ia = mdIntArr[0].intArray;
    //print (ia[0]);

    public MultidimensionalString[] multidimensional = new MultidimensionalString[0];


    public void Start(){
        intArr= mdIntArr[0]; //compile error occurs here
        print (multidimensional[0][0]);
        print (mdIntArr[0][0]);
        print (mdIntArr[0].Length);
        //Debug.Log(multidimensional[1][1]);
    }
}

which, according to the error log, tells me the code is trying to stuff a MDIntArray into the int[ ] object.

EDIT: The solution was just to reference the intArray object:

intArr= mdIntArr[0].intArray;
5

because intArr is an Array if type MDIntArray , the element at mdIntArr[0] is an normal int array. you could do

intArr = mdIntArr or intArr[0] = mdIntArr[0]

also you are making here

and here

isn’t this creating an empty array?

6

This isn’t a multi-dimensional array. A multi-dimensional array is when you have rows & columns. Right now you’re just doing a normal array.

This is an MD array:

var x = new int[6,3];