In the array class we have method Count() and property Length.
Afaic see both returns the initial value set from array-definition:
Ped[] arr = new Ped[10]; // set mem for 10 Peds in datastructure arr
arr.Length readout 10
arr.Count() readout 10
imo Count() should readout the actual number of inserted Peds in arr, and not the number of available slots in array
It does not look like there is a variable that keeps track of number of inserted elements in array
Is that meant to be like that?

Correct, there is no property that keeps track of how many elements there are in an array. You could count them yourself or defer to a list if that is something that is important. As for Count(), that is probably the Linq extension method that you are seeing that works via Enumerable.Count<T>(IEnumerable<T>). Since array is also an IEnumerable, this method is also available. Internally, it will just call Length, though, so there is no benefit of using it. Depending on the underlying data type, it will have to iterate over all elements to figure out the length so it can be expensive to use.

6 hours ago, LMS said:

count them yourself

Yes, thats what i do now.
Thanks for clarifying!
Dynamically arrays are also not an option afaic understand, so if the number of elements will vary a List should be used, right?

On 9/12/2023 at 3:45 PM, GTAbear said:

Yes, thats what i do now.
Thanks for clarifying!
Dynamically arrays are also not an option afaic understand, so if the number of elements will vary a List should be used, right?

 

Yes, a list is usually the better option when you need to add new elements. You can have a dynamically sized array, but when you exceed the current size, you would have to copy the entire old array which makes the insertion operation slow sometimes. While there might be cases where the retrieval performance of an array justifies a slow insert, but there might also be better data structures for that need and in general in modding, usually the number of elements is small enough that using a list is never a bad idea.