Array.Copy has been around since 1.1 and does an excellent job of chunking arrays.
string[] buffer;
for(int i = 0; i < source.Length; i+=100)
{
buffer = new string[100];
Array.Copy(source, i, buffer, 0, 100);
// process array
}
And to make an extension for it:
public static class Extensions
{
public static T[] Slice(this T[] source, int index, int length)
{
T[] slice = new T[length];
Array.Copy(source, index, slice, 0, length);
return slice;
}
}
And to use the extension:
string[] source = new string[] { 1200 items here };
// get the first 100
string[] slice = source.Slice(0, 100);
Update: I think you might be wanting ArraySegment<> No need for performance checks, because it simply uses the original array as its source and maintains an Offset and Count property to determine the 'segment'. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to retrieve JUST the segment as an array, so some folks have written wrappers for it, like here: ArraySegment - Returning the actual segment C#
ArraySegment segment;
for (int i = 0; i < source.Length; i += 100)
{
segment = new ArraySegment(source, i, 100);
// and to loop through the segment
for (int s = segment.Offset; s < segment.Array.Length; s++)
{
Console.WriteLine(segment.Array[s]);
}
}
Performance of Array.Copy vs Skip/Take vs LINQ
Test method (in Release mode):
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string[] source = new string[1000000];
for (int i = 0; i < source.Length; i++)
{
source[i] = "string " + i.ToString();
}
string[] buffer;
Console.WriteLine("Starting stop watch");
Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
for (int n = 0; n < 5; n++)
{
sw.Reset();
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < source.Length; i += 100)
{
buffer = new string[100];
Array.Copy(source, i, buffer, 0, 100);
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Array.Copy: " + sw.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString());
sw.Reset();
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < source.Length; i += 100)
{
buffer = new string[100];
buffer = source.Skip(i).Take(100).ToArray();
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Skip/Take: " + sw.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString());
sw.Reset();
sw.Start();
String[][] chunks = source
.Select((s, i) => new { Value = s, Index = i })
.GroupBy(x => x.Index / 100)
.Select(grp => grp.Select(x => x.Value).ToArray())
.ToArray();
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("LINQ: " + sw.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString());
}
Console.ReadLine();
}
Results (in milliseconds):
Array.Copy: 15
Skip/Take: 42464
LINQ: 881
Array.Copy: 21
Skip/Take: 42284
LINQ: 585
Array.Copy: 11
Skip/Take: 43223
LINQ: 760
Array.Copy: 9
Skip/Take: 42842
LINQ: 525
Array.Copy: 24
Skip/Take: 43134
LINQ: 638
