scope of c# arrays created within a streamreader 'using' block

Question

I am relatively new to C#, but I am running into what I believe is a scope issue, but have been unable to find a similar problem/solution via web searches.

I am trying to read the contents of a csv file into a multi-dimensional int array. The file contains 'control' values which will be used for comparison/decisioning in steps that occur later in the program.

The closest I've been able to get to achieving this so far is by using a streamReader to read the file, splitting each line into separate values, and converting the string values to int32. All of this occurs within a 'while' block inside of a 'using' block. The array is defined/initialized prior to entering the 'using' block.

I have verified that the correct int values are being assigned to the appropriate array element, by inserting a breakpoint within the while statement and checking the array contents. However, as soon as it exits the 'while' block, the array contents are invalid; not empty, just invalid. All of the array elements that were initialized to, or populated with 0, still contain 0. However, elements that were previously populated non-zero numbers, now contain at most 4 digits. It does not appear to me to be trimming/truncating, as the post-'while' values are entirely different values.

For example, target[1,0,1,9] gets populated with 41513, which displays correctly as integer 41513 within the 'while', but as soon as I exit the 'while' block, target[1,0,1,9] consistently contains 3718.

I've tried several approaches that I've found online, but the one I describe above results in the same issue.

sample code is below.

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        int[,,,] target = new int[60, 3, 6, 86];
        int[,,,] accum = new int[60, 3, 6, 86];
        char[] delims = new char[] { ',' };
        int g = new int();
        int a = new int();
        int b = new int();
        int c = new int();
        int d = new int();
        string e = null;
        string f = null;

        using (StreamReader myRdr1 = new StreamReader("f:\\targetData.csv"))
        {
            string line;
            myRdr1.ReadLine();     // skip over the column headers
            while ((line = myRdr1.ReadLine()) != null)
            {
                string[] words = line.Split(delims);
                a = System.Convert.ToInt32(words[2]);
                b = System.Convert.ToInt32(words[3]);
                c = System.Convert.ToInt32(words[5]);
                d = System.Convert.ToInt32(words[6]);
                e = words[10];
                f = words[11];
                target[a, b, c, d] = System.Convert.ToInt32(words[9]);

            }
        }

        for (int i = 1; i < 60; i++)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(g.ToString());
            Console.WriteLine();
            Console.WriteLine(target[1, 0, 1, 9]);
            Console.ReadLine();
            for (int j = 0; j < 3; j++)
            {
                for (int k = 0; k < 6; k++)
                {
                    for (int l = 0; l < 86; l++)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("a " + i.ToString() +
                                            ", b " + j.ToString() +
                                            ", c " + k.ToString() +
                                            ", d " + l.ToString() +
                                            "=     " + target[i, j, k, l]);
                        Console.ReadLine();
                    }
                }
            }

        }

    }

Answer 1

To me the issue looks like in the below line where you are initializing the array values for all index with words[9] and so the previous value probably getting overridden with the new value.

target[a, b, c, d] = System.Convert.ToInt32(words[9]);