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Issue with out system.Array Conversion for solidworks plugin C#

I just got thrown into a C# project for solidWorks that I'm not too comfortable with. I need to convert this out System.Array to a string[]. Then that string is called and converted from out System.Array to out EdmLib.EdmBatchError2[].
TLDR: out System.Array' to a string[].
Code:
private void GetSerialNumberGenerators()
{
IEdmSerNoGen7 utility = this.m_vault.CreateUtility(EdmUtility.EdmUtil_SerNoGen) as IEdmSerNoGen7;
Array ppoRetNames = Array.CreateInstance(typeof(string[]), 0);
utility.GetSerialNumberNames(out ppoRetNames);
this.comboBoxSerialNumber.DataSource = (object) ppoRetNames;
}
Severity Code Description Project File Line Suppression State
Error CS1503 Argument 1: cannot convert from 'out System.Array' to 'out string[]'

It's simple as
string[] ppoRetNames;
GetSerialNumberNames(out ppoRetNames);
This is the way to declare a string[]. Don't initialize it yourself because GetSerialNumberNames will do it (out-parameter). No need to use Array.CreateInstance.
Apart from that you are creating a jagged array because you pass typeof(string[]) not typeof(string). You need a one dimensional array so this would be correct:
Array someArray = Array.CreateInstance(typeof(string), 0);
string[] ppoRetNames = (string[])someArray; // so a cast is what was missing

GetSerialNumberNames returns System.Array of type EdmBatchError2, which is a structure of 4 ints, so I don't know how that would cast to a string[] in a usable sense. Here is what I do:
utility.GetSerialNumberNames(out Array ppoRetNames);
foreach(EdmBatchError2 batchError in ppoRetNames) {
// construct error message with below variables for each error
//batchError.mlFileID;
//batchError.mlFolderID;
//batchError.mlVariableID;
//batchError.mlErrorCode;
}

Sorting INT variables C#

I am just beginning with programming in c#;
I got a list of int variables that I want to sort, and find the number 1.
int Weapon_Count1, Weapon_Count2, Weapon_Count3, Weapon_Count4, Weapon_Count5, Weapon_Count6, Weapon_Count7, Weapon_Count8, Weapon_Count9
do I need to do this with an array?
By using the yellow book of C# I found out how to make an array, but I can't figure out how to assign the variables to the array.
int [] Weapon_Count = new int [11] ;
for ( int i=0; i<11; i=i+1)
{
Weapon_Count [i] = ??? ;}
I hope this does make sense..

Please let me explain how to use a C#-array.
This creates an unitialized integer-array with 5 elements:
int[] a1= new int[5];
Assigning values 9,8,7,6 and 5:
(Please note that only indexes from 0 to 4 can be used. Index 5 is not valid.)
a1[0]=9;
a1[1]=8;
a1[2]=7;
a1[3]=6;
a1[4]=5;
The same can also achieved with just one line:
int[] a1= new int[] {9,8,7,6,5};

This might help you.
// Declaring the array
int[] Weapon_Count;
// Initializing the array with a size of 11
Weapon_Count = new int[11];
// Adding values to the array
for (int i = 0; i < Weapon_Count.Length; i++)
{
Weapon_Count[i] = i + 100;
}
// Printing the values in the array
for (int i = 0; i < Weapon_Count.Length; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine(Weapon_Count[i]);
}
// Same thing with a list
// Daclare and initializing the List of integers
List<int> weapon_list = new List<int>();
// Adding some values
weapon_list.Add(1);
weapon_list.Add(2);
weapon_list.Add(3);
weapon_list.Add(4);
weapon_list.Add(5);
// Printing weapin_list's values
for (int i = 0; i < weapon_list.Count; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine(weapon_list[i]);
}
// This is just for the console to wait when you are in debug mode.
Console.ReadKey();
Dont forget to include the using statment if you want to use lists (in short hand - dynamic arrays that can change in size.)
using System.Collections.Generic;

The easiest way to do this, assuming there is a finite list of variables to check, would be to throw them into a temporary array and call either Max() or Min() from the System.Linq namespace.
int maxCount = new int[] { Weapon_Count1, Weapon_Count2, Weapon_Count3, Weapon_Count4, Weapon_Count5, Weapon_Count6, Weapon_Count7, Weapon_Count8, Weapon_Count9 }.Max(); // or .Min()
EDIT
If you still want to get those variables into an array, I would recommend using a System.Collections.Generic.List which has a dynamic size and helper methods such as .Add() to simplify things. Lists can also be used with Linq functions similar to the first part of my answer. See Dot Net Perls for some really good examples on different C# data types and functions.
EDIT 2
As #kblok says, you'll want to add using System.Linq; at the top of your file to gain access to the functions such as Max and Min. If you want to try using the List type, you'll need to add using System.Collections.Generic; as well. If you're in Visual Studio 2017 (maybe 2015 as well?) you can type out the data type and then hit Ctrl + . to get suggestions for namespaces that might contain that data type.

Before we start, you might edit your array to look like this:
int[] weapons = { Weapon_Count1, Weapon_Count2, Weapon_Count3, Weapon_Count4, Weapon_Count5, Weapon_Count6, Weapon_Count7, Weapon_Count8, Weapon_Count9 };
This means that you've created an array called weapons and it is holding integer values.
After you did this, lets find out which element in your array has value of number one.
To find which value has value "1" we must look at each element in array, and we might do that on few ways but I would like recommend foreach or for loop, in this case I will choose foreach loop.
foreach(var item in weapons)
{
if (item == 1)
//Do something
}
This above means, loop throught all of my elements, and in case some of them is equal to number one please do something..
P.S
(I may advice to create one variable which will hold an element which has value '1' and when you find it in a loop assing that variable to that element, and later you can do whatever you want with that variable.. and if you think there will be more elements with value of number one and you need all of them, instead of variable I mentioned above you will create list or array to hold all of your elements and also you can do later with them whatever you want to.)
Thanks and if you are interested in this kind of solution, leave me a comment so let me help you till the end to solve this if you are still struggling.

How to convert this code from Unityscript to C#?

I am trying to convert Unity UnityScript to C#. I am getting this error:
Assets/Scripts/BoostPlatformCheck.cs(40,36): error CS0019: Operator
==' cannot be applied to operands of typeint' and `object'
Here is the C# code:
int collidedWith = collisionInfo.gameObject.GHetInstanceID();
ArrayList collided = new ArrayList();
....
if(collidedWith == collided[collided.Count - i - 1])
{
alreadyExists = true;
return;
}
I changed Array to ArrayList and collided.length to collided.Count when I converted it from JS to C#.

I changed Array to ArrayList and collided.length to collided.Count
when I converted it from JS to C#
Since you just want to convert the code to C#, use array of int instead of ArrayList:
int[] collided = new int [10]; // This is how you declare arrays in C#
Then you can just use collided.length like in Javascript to find the length of the array.
Also one more thing, arrays in C# has a built in function Contains() that may help you in your case, which seems like you're iterating over the array to compare collidedWith. To simplify, you can remove the loop and try this:
// This means collidedWith exists within collided, so you won't need the loop anymore
if(collided.Contains(collidedWith))
alreadyExists = true;

MS Word Automation in C# - Unable to cast object of type 'System.String[*]' to type 'System.String[]'

I use this code to get a String array of headings used in a MS Word 2007 document (.docx):
dynamic arr = Document.GetCrossReferenceItems(WdReferenceType.wdRefTypeHeading);
Using the debugger, I see that arr is dynamically assigned a String array with titles of all my headings in the document (about 40 entries). So far so good.
Then, I want to access the strings, but no matter how I do it, I get the following exception:
InvalidCastException:
Unable to cast object of type 'System.String[*]' to type 'System.String[]'.
I have tried different ways of accessing the strings:
By index:
String arr_elem = arr[1];
By casting to an IEnumerable:
IEnumerable list = (IEnumerable)arr;
By using a simple foreach loop:
foreach (String str in arr)
{
Console.WriteLine(str);
}
However, no matter what I try, I always end up with the same exception as shown above.
Can anyone explain what I am missing here / what I am doing wrong? And especially String[*] - what does it mean?

string[] is a vector - a 1-d, 0-based array. string[*], however, is a regular array that just happens to have one dimension. Basically, you are going to have to handle it as Array, and either copy the data out, or use the Array API rather than the string[] API.
This is the same as the difference between typeof(string).MakeArrayType() (the vector) and typeof(string).MakeArrayType(1) (a 1-d non-vector).

try
object arr_r = Document.GetCrossReferenceItems(WdReferenceType.wdRefTypeHeading);
Array arr = ((Array) (arr_r));
string myHeading = (string) arr.GetValue(1);

The problem is that you're using dynamic in a situation where it apparently wasn't intended. When the dynamic runtime sees a 1D array, it assumes a vector, and tries to index into it or enumerate it as if it were a vector. This is one of those rare cases where you have a 1D array that is not a vector, so you have to handle it as an Array:
Array arr = (Array)(object)Document.
GetCrossReferenceItems(WdReferenceType.wdRefTypeHeading);
// works
String arr_elem = arr.GetValue(1);
// now works
IEnumerable list = (IEnumerable)arr;
// now works
foreach (String str in arr)
{
Console.WriteLine(str);
}

Converting a List<> to an Array - I get "Attempted to access an element as a type incompatible with the array."

I'm trying to walk through a bunch of items, each item has an array of List<> objects that I want to convert to an array of arrays.. Here's the code to do that:
foreach (IngredientNode i in _snapshot._ingredientMap.Values)
{
for (int c = 0; c < NUM_TAGS; c++)
{
if (i.RecipesByTag[c] == null) continue;
i.RecipesByTag[c] = i.RecipesByTag[c].ToArray<RecipeNode>();
} <--- EXCEPTION
}
RecipesByTag has a static type of IEnumerable<RecipeNode>[]. However, its dynamic type is List<RecipeNode>[]. I want to go through each one of those and convert the dynamic type of RecopeNode[]. Under the debugger, this works and i.RecipesByTag gets converted. However, the last curly brace then throws the exception:
Attempted to access an element as a type incompatible with the array.
I have a feeling there's some sort of stack corruption going on. Can someone explain what's happening at a technical level here? Thanks!
Mike

You shouldn't have to specify the type argument for the ToArray method, it should be inferred from it's usage, if you are using strongly typed collections. This is a generic type casting problem. You are trying to put elements in an array of some incompatible type.
Your problem should boil to this (these arrays are covariant):
object[] obj = new string[1];
obj[0] = 5; // compiles fine, yields runtime error
Now, the same thing, with different types (these arrays are also covariant):
IEnumerable<int>[] x = new List<int>[1];
x[0] = new int[1]; // compiles fine, yields runtime error
It should be obvious why the type system doesn't like this. Basically, you look at it as if it was an array of IEnumerable<int> but it's actually an array of List<int>. You can not put an unrelated type array of int, into that array.
I believe Eric Lippert explains this very well on his blog.

Okay I think I figured out what's going on.. I have an array of Enumerables. At first, this was an array of pointers to list objects. I instead made this an array of other arrays, in other words I converted my array into a multidimentional array. Since a multidimentional array is consecutive in memory (as opposed to an array of pointers to other arrays), doing this completely corrupted the array in memory. At least that's my theory.
What I did is completely recreate i.RecipesByTag from scratch. Something like this:
List<RecipeNode[]> temp = new List<RecipeNode[]>();
for (int c = 0; c < NUM_TAGS; c++)
{
RecipeNode[] nodes = (i.RecipesByTag[c] == null) ? null : i.RecipesByTag[c].ToArray<RecipeNode>();
temp.Add(nodes);
}
i.RecipesByTag = temp.ToArray();
This works perfectly.