Select entire row from 2d object[] where first column value matches - linq

Question

I have a 2D object array containing something like this:
Filename | "filename.txt" | 1
Path | "C:\temp\" | 2
Date | 16/06/2015 | 3
I'd like to extract from this array the row which matches a given header, where the header is the value of the first column. For example, given 'Path', I'd like to be given:
Path | "C:\temp\" | 2
I'm currently looping through to find the correct row number, then looping through that row to extract it. I'm pretty sure that using linq could make this look a bit nicer but I've had very little use in it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

If you are using a jagged array, it's fairly straightforward:
object[][] jagged = { new object[] {"Filename", "filename.txt", 1},
new object[] {"Path", #"C:\Temp", 2},
new object[] {"Date", new DateTime(2015,6,16), 3}};
var q = from j in jagged
where (j[0] as string) == "Path"
select j;
var row = q.FirstOrDefault();
// row is an object[3] array
in fact, that can be reduced to just:
var row = jagged.FirstOrDefault(j =>(j[0] as string) == "Path");
Howeverf, if you are using a rectangluar array, it get much uglier. Rectangular arrays have no concept of "rows" or "columns", just cells, so you'd need to build a new array:
object[,] rect = { { "Filename", "filename.txt", 1},
{"Path", #"C:\Temp", 2},
{"Date", new DateTime(2015,6,16), 3}};
var result = new object[rect.GetLength(1)];
for(int i = rect.GetLowerBound(0); i <= rect.GetUpperBound(0); ++i)
{
if (rect[i, rect.GetLowerBound(1)] as string == "Path")
{
for (int j = 0; j < rect.GetLength(1); ++j)
result[j] = rect[i, rect.GetLowerBound(1) + j];
break;
}
}