2d-Array with more than 65535^2 elements --> Array dimensions exceeded supported range

Question

I\'ve a 64-bit PC with 128 GB of RAM and I\'m using C# and .NET 4.5. I\'ve the following code:

double[,] m1 = new double[65535, 65535];
long l1 = m1.LongLeng         


        

Answer 1

I've used the basic example of the "Marshal" approach from this answer from MrPaulch to create the following class called HugeMatrix:

public class HugeMatrix : IDisposable
    where T : struct
{
    public IntPtr Pointer
    {
        get { return pointer; }
    }

    private IntPtr pointer = IntPtr.Zero;

    public int NRows
    {
        get { return Transposed ? _NColumns : _NRows; }
    }

    private int _NRows = 0;

    public int NColumns
    {
        get { return Transposed ? _NRows : _NColumns; }
    }

    private int _NColumns = 0;

    public bool Transposed
    {
        get { return _Transposed; }
        set { _Transposed = value; }
    }

    private bool _Transposed = false;

    private ulong b_element_size = 0;
    private ulong b_row_size = 0;
    private ulong b_size = 0;
    private bool disposed = false;


    public HugeMatrix()
        : this(0, 0)
    {
    }

    public HugeMatrix(int nrows, int ncols, bool transposed = false)
    {
        if (nrows < 0)
            throw new ArgumentException("The number of rows can not be negative");
        if (ncols < 0)
            throw new ArgumentException("The number of columns can not be negative");
        _NRows = transposed ? ncols : nrows;
        _NColumns = transposed ? nrows : ncols;
        _Transposed = transposed;
        b_element_size = (ulong)(Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(T)));
        b_row_size = (ulong)_NColumns * b_element_size;
        b_size = (ulong)_NRows * b_row_size;
        pointer = Marshal.AllocHGlobal((IntPtr)b_size);
        disposed = false;
    }

    public HugeMatrix(T[,] matrix, bool transposed = false)
        : this(matrix.GetLength(0), matrix.GetLength(1), transposed)
    {
        int nrows = matrix.GetLength(0);
        int ncols = matrix.GetLength(1);
        for (int i1 = 0; i1 < nrows; i1++)
            for (int i2 = 0; i2 < ncols; i2++)
                this[i1, i2] = matrix[i1, i2];
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        if (!disposed)
        {
            Marshal.FreeHGlobal(pointer);
            _NRows = 0;
            _NColumns = 0;
            _Transposed = false;
            b_element_size = 0;
            b_row_size = 0;
            b_size = 0;
            pointer = IntPtr.Zero;
            disposed = true;
        }
    }

    public void Transpose()
    {
        _Transposed = !_Transposed;
    }

    public T this[int i_row, int i_col]
    {
        get
        {
            IntPtr p = getAddress(i_row, i_col);
            return (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(p, typeof(T));
        }
        set
        {
            IntPtr p = getAddress(i_row, i_col);
            Marshal.StructureToPtr(value, p, true);
        }
    }

    private IntPtr getAddress(int i_row, int i_col)
    {
        if (disposed)
            throw new ObjectDisposedException("Can't access the matrix once it has been disposed");
        if (i_row < 0)
            throw new IndexOutOfRangeException("Negative row indices are not allowed");
        if (i_row >= NRows)
            throw new IndexOutOfRangeException("Row index is out of bounds of this matrix");
        if (i_col < 0)
            throw new IndexOutOfRangeException("Negative column indices are not allowed");
        if (i_col >= NColumns)
            throw new IndexOutOfRangeException("Column index is out of bounds of this matrix");
        int i1 = Transposed ? i_col : i_row;
        int i2 = Transposed ? i_row : i_col;
        ulong p_row = (ulong)pointer + b_row_size * (ulong)i1;
        IntPtr p = (IntPtr)(p_row + b_element_size * (ulong)i2);
        return p;
    }
}

and I can call now the Intel MKL library with huge matrices, e.g.:

[DllImport("custom_mkl", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl, ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = false)]
internal static extern lapack_int LAPACKE_dsyevd(
    int matrix_layout, char jobz, char uplo, lapack_int n, [In, Out] IntPtr a, lapack_int lda, [In, Out] double[] w);

For the argument IntPtr a I pass the Pointer property of the HugeMatrix class.