Question

Im looking for an example of multidimensional arrays. I have an array of thumbtails (9 for example) and a tablecellview of 4 thumbs pre row, giving me 3 rows. I want to create a new multidimensional array which will hold the 3 rows each row containing 4 arrays.

Ive looked at many example for the past 3h but they all seem to suggest to use C-style coding and im not sure how to go about initialising them or if i need to release. Plus im using this in a tableview so im not sure if ill need to use NSarray or ill be able to get away with C-style array. Any suggestions gratefully appreciated.

thumbnailarr[0][0] = 'img1.png';
thumbnailarr[0][1] = 'img2.png';
thumbnailarr[0][2] = 'img3.png';
thumbnailarr[0][3] = 'img4.png';

thumbnailarr[1][0] = 'img5.png';
thumbnailarr[1][1] = 'img6.png';
thumbnailarr[1][2] = 'img7.png';
thumbnailarr[1][3] = 'img8.png';

thumbnailarr[2][0] = 'img9.png';

Answer 1

A multidimensional array is essentially an array of arrays, an NSArray can have NSArrays as its contents. For example:

NSArray *thumbs= [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                          [NSArray arrayWithObjects: @"img1.png",@"img2.png",@"img3.png",@"img4.png",nil],
                          [NSArray arrayWithObjects: @"img5.png",@"img6.png",@"img7.png",@"img8.png",nil],
                          [NSArray arrayWithObject: @"img9.png"],nil];

access like this:

[[thumbs objectAtIndex:i] objectAtIndex:j]; //same as thumbs[i][j]