c# - Span and two dimensional Arrays

Question

Is it possible to use the new System.Memory Span struct with two dimensional arrays of data?

double[,] testMulti = 
    {
        { 1, 2, 3, 4 },
        { 5, 6, 7, 8 },
        { 9, 9.5f, 10, 11 },
        { 12, 13, 14.3f, 15 }
    };

double[] testArray = { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
string testString = "Hellow world";

testMulti.AsSpan(); // Compile error
testArray.AsSpan();
testString.AsSpan();

Whilst testArray and testString have a AsSpan extension, no such extension exists for testMulti.

Is the design of Span limited to working with single dimensional arrays of data?
I've not found an obvious way of working with the testMulti array using Span.

Answer 1

You can create a Span with unmanaged memory. This will allow you to Slice and Dice indiscriminately.

unsafe
{
    Span<T> something = new Span<T>(pointerToarray, someLength); 
}

Full Demo

unsafe public static void Main(string[] args)
{
   double[,] doubles =  {
         { 1, 2, 3, 4 },
         { 5, 6, 7, 8 },
         { 9, 9.5f, 10, 11 },
         { 12, 13, 14.3f, 15 }
      };

   var length = doubles.GetLength(0) * doubles.GetLength(1);

   fixed (double* p = doubles)
   {
      var span = new Span<double>(p, length);
      var slice = span.Slice(6, 5);

      foreach (var item in slice)
         Console.WriteLine(item);
   }
}

Output

7
8
9
9.5
10

Other options would be to reallocate to a single dimension array, cop the penalty and do not Pass-Go

• BlockCopy
• or p/invoke memcpy directly and use unsafe and pointers
• Cast<T> eg multiDimensionalArrayData.Cast<byte>().ToArray()

The first 2 will be more performant for large arrays.