how to create a contiguous 2d array in c++?

Question

I want to create a function that returns a contiguous 2D array in C++.

It is not a problem to create the array using the command:

 int (*v)[cols] = n         


        

Answer 1

If you want to create an array where the data is contiguous and you don't want a 1-dimensional array (i.e. you want to use the [][] syntax), then the following should work. It creates an array of pointers, and each pointer points to a position into a pool of memory.

#include 
#include 

template 
T** create2DArray(unsigned nrows, unsigned ncols, const T& val = T())
{
   if (nrows == 0)
        throw std::invalid_argument("number of rows is 0");
   if (ncols == 0)
        throw std::invalid_argument("number of columns is 0");
   T** ptr = nullptr;
   T* pool = nullptr;
   try
   {
       ptr = new T*[nrows];  // allocate pointers (can throw here)
       pool = new T[nrows*ncols]{val};  // allocate pool (can throw here)

       // now point the row pointers to the appropriate positions in
       // the memory pool
       for (unsigned i = 0; i < nrows; ++i, pool += ncols )
           ptr[i] = pool;

       // Done.
       return ptr;
   }
   catch (std::bad_alloc& ex)
   {
       delete [] ptr; // either this is nullptr or it was allocated
       throw ex;  // memory allocation error
   }
}

template 
void delete2DArray(T** arr)
{
   delete [] arr[0];  // remove the pool
   delete [] arr;     // remove the pointers
}

int main()
{
   try 
   { 
      double **dPtr = create2DArray(10,10);
      dPtr[0][0] = 10;  // for example
      delete2DArray(dPtr);  // free the memory
   }
   catch(std::bad_alloc& ex)
   {
      std::cout << "Could not allocate array";
   }
}

Note that only 2 allocations are done. Not only is this more efficient due to the lesser amounts of allocations done, we now have a better chance of doing a rollback of the allocated memory if a memory allocation fails, unlike the "traditional" way of allocating a 2D array in non-contiguous memory:

// The "traditional" non-contiguous allocation of a 2D array (assume N x M)
T** ptr;
ptr = new T*[N];
for (int i = 0; i < N; ++i)
   ptr[i] = new T [M]; // <<-- What happens if new[] throws at some iteration?

If new[] throws an exception somewhere during the operation of the for loop, you have to roll back all of the successful calls to new[] that happened previously -- that requires more code and adds complexity.

Note how you deallocate the memory in the contiguous version -- just two calls to delete[] when allocated contiguously instead of a loop calling delete[] for each row.

---

Also, since the data is in contiguous memory, algorithms, functions, etc. that assume that the data is in contiguous memory, just like a one-dimensional array, can now be used by specifying the start and end range for the M*N matrix:

[&array[0][0], &array[M-1][N])

For example:

std::sort(&myArray[0][0], &myArray[M-1][N]);

will sort the entire matrix in ascending order, starting from index [0][0] up until the last index [M-1][N-1].

You can improve on the design by making this a true class instead of having allocation / deallocation as 2 separate functions.

---

Edit: The class is not RAII-like, just as the comment says. I leave that as an exercise for the reader. One thing missing from the code above is the check that nRows and nCols are > 0 when creating such an array.

Edit 2: Added a try-catch to ensure a proper roll back of the memory allocation is done if a std::bad_alloc exception is thrown attempting to allocate memory.

---

Edit: For a 3 dimensional array example of code similar to the above see this answer. Included is code to roll back allocations if the allocation fails.

---

Edit: Rudimentary RAII class added:

template 
class Array2D
{
    T** data_ptr;
    unsigned m_rows;
    unsigned m_cols;

    T** create2DArray(unsigned nrows, unsigned ncols, const T& val = T())
    {
        T** ptr = nullptr;
        T* pool = nullptr;
        try
        {
            ptr = new T*[nrows];  // allocate pointers (can throw here)
            pool = new T[nrows*ncols]{ val };  // allocate pool (can throw here)

            // now point the row pointers to the appropriate positions in
            // the memory pool
            for (unsigned i = 0; i < nrows; ++i, pool += ncols)
                ptr[i] = pool;

            // Done.
            return ptr;
        }
        catch (std::bad_alloc& ex)
        {
            delete[] ptr; // either this is nullptr or it was allocated
            throw ex;  // memory allocation error
        }
    }

public:
    typedef T value_type;
    T** data() {
        return data_ptr;
    }

    unsigned get_rows() const {
        return m_rows;
    }

    unsigned get_cols() const {
        return m_cols;
    }

    Array2D() : data_ptr(nullptr), m_rows(0), m_cols(0) {}
    Array2D(unsigned rows, unsigned cols, const T& val = T())
    {
        if (rows == 0)
            throw std::invalid_argument("number of rows is 0");
        if (cols == 0)
            throw std::invalid_argument("number of columns is 0");
        data_ptr = create2DArray(rows, cols, val);
        m_rows = rows;
        m_cols = cols;
    }

    ~Array2D()
    {
        if (data_ptr)
        {
            delete[] data_ptr[0];  // remove the pool
            delete[] data_ptr;     // remove the pointers
        }
    }

    Array2D(const Array2D& rhs) : m_rows(rhs.m_rows), m_cols(rhs.m_cols)
    {
        data_ptr = create2DArray(m_rows, m_cols);
        std::copy(&rhs.data_ptr[0][0], &rhs.data_ptr[m_rows-1][m_cols], &data_ptr[0][0]);
    }

    Array2D(Array2D&& rhs) noexcept
    {
        data_ptr = rhs.data_ptr;
        m_rows = rhs.m_rows;
        m_cols = rhs.m_cols;
        rhs.data_ptr = nullptr;
    }

    Array2D& operator=(Array2D&& rhs) noexcept
    {
        if (&rhs != this)
        {
            swap(rhs, *this);
            rhs.data_ptr = nullptr;
        }
        return *this;
    }

    void swap(Array2D& left, Array2D& right)
    {
        std::swap(left.data_ptr, right.data_ptr);
        std::swap(left.m_cols, right.m_cols);
        std::swap(left.m_rows, right.m_rows);
    }

    Array2D& operator = (const Array2D& rhs)
    {
        if (&rhs != this)
        {
            Array2D temp(rhs);
            swap(*this, temp);
        }
        return *this;
    }

    T* operator[](unsigned row)
    {
        return data_ptr[row];
    }

    const T* operator[](unsigned row) const
    {
        return data_ptr[row];
    }

    void create(unsigned rows, unsigned cols, const T& val = T())
    {
        *this = Array2D(rows, cols, val);
    }
};

int main()
{
    try
    {
        Array2D dPtr(10, 10);
        std::cout << dPtr[0][0] << " " << a2[0][0] << "\n";
    }
    catch (std::exception& ex)
    {
        std::cout << ex.what();
    }
}