Solidity 2D in-memory array with size defined by a variable

Question

I want to define an in-memory 2-dimensional array without fully hard-coding its shape. Let's say I want a 3xN matrix (and to explain ill also set its 0th element to [1, 2, 3]):

function makeArr (int n){
    int[3][n] memory arr;
    arr[0] = [1, 2, 3]
}

makeArr(1) will fail with the message Invalid array length, expected integer literal or constant expression.

I tried defining the array like this:

int[3][] memory arr;

But that also doesn't work, because the array isn't long enough: reverted with panic code 0x32 (Array accessed at an out-of-bounds or negative index)

This question has been asked before, however the answer doesn't seem to have been accepted: Creating a 2D in-memory array in Solidity.

In another similar question, the answers at the time said this simply isn't possible (3yrs old). Returning 2D array with dynamic sizes from a function

Is there an answer yet or a best practice work-around?

Answer 1

makeArr(1) will fail with the message Invalid array length, expected integer literal or constant expression.

It's exactly what the message says - you can only use a compile-time constant or a literal to define the length of the array. If you only know the size of the array at runtime, you must use a dynamically-sized one.

But that also doesn't work, because the array isn't long enough: reverted with panic code 0x32 (Array accessed at an out-of-bounds or negative index)

This is what you want. You just did not allocate any memory for your array so its size is zero. Also, your code has some other problems. This is the correct way to do it:

function makeArr(uint n) pure {
    int[3][] memory arr = new int[3][](n);
    arr[0] = [int(1), 2, 3];
}

The problems I mentioned:

• The array size must be an unsigned integer. You can always convert convert int to uint but then you have to validate it to ensure it's not negative. You're better off just changing the type of n to uint.
• For array literals the type is based on the smallest common type all elements can fit into. So for [1, 2, 3] the type is uint8[3]. You need int[3] for the assignment to work so an explicit conversion is needed.