How do I clone a range of array elements to a new array?

Question

I have an array X of 10 elements. I would like to create a new array containing all the elements from X that begin at index 3 and ends in index 7. Sure I can easily write a

Answer 1

As an alternative to copying the data you can make a wrapper that gives you access to a part of the original array as if it was a copy of the part of the array. The advantage is that you don't get another copy of the data in memory, and the drawback is a slight overhead when accessing the data.

public class SubArray : IEnumerable {

   private T[] _original;
   private int _start;

   public SubArray(T[] original, int start, int len) {
      _original = original;
      _start = start;
      Length = len;
   }

   public T this[int index] {
      get {
         if (index < 0 || index >= Length) throw new IndexOutOfRangeException();
         return _original[_start + index];
      }
   }

   public int Length { get; private set; }

   public IEnumerator GetEnumerator() {
      for (int i = 0; i < Length; i++) {
        yield return _original[_start + i];
      }
   }

   IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator() {
      return GetEnumerator();
   }

}

Usage:

int[] original = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };
SubArray copy = new SubArray(original, 2, 2);

Console.WriteLine(copy.Length); // shows: 2
Console.WriteLine(copy[0]); // shows: 3
foreach (int i in copy) Console.WriteLine(i); // shows 3 and 4