FAQ: Arrays - Documentation Hunt

This community-built FAQ covers the “Documentation Hunt” exercise from the lesson “Arrays”.

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FAQs on the exercise Documentation Hunt

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I used Array.Fill when it asked me to set every rating in the ratings array to 0, but it wouldn’t accept the solution and told me to use Array.Clear. Is this just the way it was coded, or is there a specific reason to use Array.Clear for this?

3 Likes
           Array.Clear(ratings, 0, ratings.Length);

Wouldn’t passing in the length of the array exceed the bounds here? Should it not be ratings.Length-1?

I’m asking only because the hint in the example states “To clear an entire array, set the index to 0 (if it is zero-indexed) and then pass in the length of the array for the third parameter.”.

If we refer to the documentation for the Array.Clear method, we can see that the second parameter of this method is “The starting index of the range of elements to clear.” BUT the third parameter is NOT the index of the last element. Had it been the index of the last element, then your observation would be correct and we would use ratings.Length - 1.

The third parameter of the Array.Clear method is “The number of elements to clear.” So the Array.Length property (ratings.Length in this particular case) is the correct code, as the property gives us the number of elements in the array.

1 Like

I did Array.Clear(ratings,0,7);
Then I tried Console.WriteLine(ratings);
This was what was printed:
System.Int32

Not the array {0,0,0,0,0,0,0}. Why?

For things like integers, double, strings etc., the Console.WriteLine() method works fine in displaying a text representation. But for certain objects like Arrays, the textual representation displayed by the Console.WriteLine() method is basically a description of the type of the object.
If you do Console.WriteLine(ratings), you will see “System.Int32
If you do Console.WriteLine(summerStrut), you will see “System.String

If you want to see the elements of the array, you can try looping over the array.
One way to do so can be

foreach (int rating in ratings) {
        Console.WriteLine(rating);
      }

Another way could be
Array.ForEach(ratings, Console.WriteLine);

4 Likes

Clone() should be, but is not accepted as a solution here…

2 Likes

I did that too, and the result seems to be identical to the provided Array.Clear solution.
Here is the code, in case someone is curious:

using System;

namespace DocumentationHunt
{
  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {     
      int[] ratings = { 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 5, 5, 4 };

      Array.Fill(ratings, 0);
      Array.ForEach(ratings, Console.WriteLine);
    }
  }
}

This seems much more intuitive. And when I coded it to match the solution, a " " would print to the Console, not 0.

Further teaching is needed on this subject. There’s a lot of: “this is how it is,” without explanations. Those of us that need scaffolding (and have never coded anything before) are severely hindered by this variety of lesson. Students that function well in the: “go find it yourself,” method will prosper. Everyone else is utterly screwed. Before anyone says: “How do you expect to code independently if you don’t find solutions,” I’ll say this:
No one can code independently before they are properly taught. I need all of the questions answered before I attempt to apply knowledge I do not yet have. Yes, I can ask questions here, but only after I’m expected to apply principles. It makes me question if I’ve learned anything and/or if I will retain anything I’ve just learned. This lesson is akin to a teacher tossing a text book at a child and saying, “Go learn!” Yeah, we’re probably adults here, but that isn’t teaching. That’s: "go learn"ing. Just some food for thought. I DO have a question though.

Actual Question: Array.Clear(ratings, 0, ratings.Length); <–there is nothing intuitive that would tell me, a newbie, to use ratings.Length instead of the actual # of character positions. Would listing the # of character positions work?
Array.Clear(ratings, 0, 8);
When I code it as such, I still get the correct answer but I am unsure if this is only replacing value 0 and 8, or if it is actually replacing values 0-8.
I understand that ratings.Length would allow users to change the length of the playlist, but earlier in the assignment, we were told it could only have 8 songs. Does this account for if there were only 7 songs?

Thanks for the answers!
I will say one thing: The Codecademy staff is WONDERFUL at swiftly answering questions. 10/10 good teaching there.

4 Likes

I really do not like this specific lesson. Codecadamy has a tendency there is only one way to solve a task and only one.
Yes, I could use Arrays.Copy(). but I could also use the non static method of CopyTo(), which is on the exact same page of the documentation. But it will mark it as wrong.
tasks like these just do not work as intended.

Honestly, this lesson was kinda bad in my opinion. I get that we should get used to reading documentation, but it’s seriously hard to do that whenever the documentation is extremely verbose and just badly organized all around. Maybe it’s just my opinion, but seriously? You’re telling me that Microsoft couldn’t have organized their documentation similar to how W3Schools has their references? Why couldn’t they just get to the point?