[] Operator (C# Reference) 

  • Article

Square brackets ([]) are used for arrays, indexers, and attributes. They can also be used with pointers.

Remarks

An array type is a type followed by []:

int[] fib; // fib is of type int[], "array of int"
fib = new int[100]; // create a 100-element int array

To access an element of an array, the index of the desired element is enclosed in brackets:

fib[0] = fib[1] = 1;
for( int i=2; i<100; ++i ) fib[i] = fib[i-1] + fib[i-2];

An exception is thrown if an array index is out of range.

The array indexing operator cannot be overloaded; however, types can define indexers, and properties that take one or more parameters. Indexer parameters are enclosed in square brackets, just like array indices, but indexer parameters can be declared to be of any type, unlike array indices, which must be integral.

For example, the .NET Framework defines a Hashtable type that associates keys and values of arbitrary type:

Collections.Hashtable h =  new Collections.Hashtable();
h["a"] = 123; // note: using a string as the index

Square brackets are also used to specify Attributes (C# Programming Guide):

[attribute(AllowMultiple=true)]
public class Attr 
{
}

You can use square brackets to index off a pointer:

unsafe fixed ( int* p = fib )   // p points to fib from earlier example
{
    p[0] = p[1] = 1;
    for( int i=2; i<100; ++i ) p[i] = p[i-1] + p[i-2];
}

No bounds checking is performed.

C# Language Specification

For more information, see the following sections in the C# Language Specification:

  • 1.6.6.5 Operators

  • 7.2 Operators

See Also

Reference

C# Operators
Indexers (C# Programming Guide)
unsafe (C# Reference)
fixed Statement (C# Reference)

Concepts

C# Programming Guide
Arrays (C# Programming Guide)

Other Resources

C# Reference