Question

I have a small C# library with a static class that holds a very large, but simple four-dimensional byte array representing a multi-dimensional decision table (about 90K bytes in total).

There’s one other data structure of note in there, a Dictionary which helps index into the first dimension of the decision table.

This decision table is a static private data member, initialized by array static initializers. The code is generated in Visual Studio 2010 with T4, from Excel documents.

Decisions are obtained via a static method that indexes into the multi-dimensional array.

When I run a simple test app using this library, it bombs with a “System.TypeLoadException: Internal limitation: too many fields.” Exception, at the first invocation of the static decision method.

The one remotely related topic on Stackoverflow mentions libraries with “too many symbols”. I may be wrong but my library seems to have very few symbols indeed.

What’s going on here?

Code Snippet:

        private static byte[][][][] decisions = new byte[][][][] {
    new byte[][][] { 
    new byte[][] { 
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6}

    },
    new byte[][] { 
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},
    new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6},new byte[]{5,6,6}

    },

…and so on…

Answer 1

new byte[]{5,6,6}

The problem here is that the initializer {5, 6, 6} creates a static field. You can see it with Ildasm.exe. The CLR imposes a maximum of, I believe, 65535 fields in a class. Your auto-generated code is exceeding it.

You are going to have to do this differently. A file jumps to mind.