Question

I am trying to do 2 different sorting algorithms on 2 exactly similar arrays (numbers and numbers2) that are generated through the Random class. I declare my 2 arrays and fill them with Random.NextBytes.

After that I do my first algorithm on numbers and then my second sorts on numbers2.

But I notice that numbers2 just seems to be a pointer to numbers because by the time I want to sort numbers2 it is already sorted.

How do I fill numbers2 with exactly the same numbers as numbers? Do I need to do it by hand with a for loop? Thank you!

class FillArray
   {

    public byte[] numbers;
    public byte[] numbers2;

        //instantiate MS Random object
        Random Generator = new Random();


        //Constructor which takes array size
        public FillArray(int amountx)
        {
          numbers = new byte[amountx]
          Generator.NextBytes(numbers);
          numbers2 = new byte[amountx];
          numbers2 = numbers;
          amount = amountx;
        }

Answer 1

Arrays are reference types, so if you want to clone the array you’ll need to copy it via Array.Copy.

int[] first = new int[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };
int[] second = new int[first.Length];
Array.Copy( first, second, first.Length );

first[0] = 10;

// prints 10
Console.WriteLine( first[0] );

// prints 1
Console.WriteLine( second[0] );

You can also use Array.CopyTo. If you don’t have a pre-existing array you can use the Clone() method as well to create a new one with shallow copies of all elements.