how can this Repeated string concatenation function - unity3d

Question

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
public class NewMonoBehaviour1 : MonoBehaviour
{
void ConcatExample(int[] intArray)
{
string line = intArray[0].ToString(); // the line is the var of the first in array
for(i =1;i <intArray.Length; i++) // the length is unknown ?
{
line += ", " + intArray[i].ToString(); //
}
return line;
//each time allocate new in original place
}
}
How can this function work ? the length of array is unknown , so how the for loop works ?Besides, this is void function but shouldn't return anythings right ,or is there any exceptional case ,finally,according to the unity manual, it is said that the function will keep producing a string but with new contents in the same place , resulting in consuming large memory space .Why ?thx

Answer 1

What makes you think that the Length should be unknown? It is a property that any array simply has
Gets the total number of elements in all the dimensions of the Array.
Of course it is not unknown the moment you call your method with an according parameter!
The return line; will not even compile since as you say the method is of type void so it can not return anything. It should probably be private string ConcatExample
Then what the unity manual (don't know where exactly you read this) means lies in
line += ", " + intArray[i].ToString();
under the hood every string in c# is an immutable char[]. So everytime you do a string concatenation via stringC = stringA + stringB what happens under the hood is basically something similar to
char[] stringC = new char[stringA.Length + stringB.Length];
for(var iA = 0; iA < stringA.Length; iA++)
{
stringC[i] = stringA[i];
}
for(var iB = 0; iB < stringB.Length; iB++)
{
stringC[iB + stringA.Length] = stringB[iB];
}
so whenever dealing with loops especially with large data it is strongly recommended to rather use a StringBuilder like
private string ConcatExample(int[] intArray)
{
var builder = new StringBuilder(intArray[0]);
for(i =1; i < intArray.Length; i++)
{
builder.Append(", ").Append(intArray[i].ToString());
}
return builder.ToString();
}

Answer 2

The length of the array will be the length of the array of ints you pass into the function as an argument.
say you pass it
Int[] ints = {1,2,3}
ConcatExample(ints); //the length of the array is now 3
add a debug.log() function to the ConcatExample method
void ConcatExample(int[] intArray)
{
string line = intArray[0].ToString();
for (int i = 1; i < intArray.Length; i++)
{
line += ", " + intArray[i].ToString(); //
Debug.Log(line);
}
}
debug.log would produce the following in the console
1, 2
1, 2, 3
and finally the return line; at the end would just result in an error because yes you are correct void returns nothing

Answer 3

This function CANNOT work, unless it gets the data it expects. A NULL passed to this function, for example, would generate a runtime null-reference exception. Passing a valid integer array, of length zero would generate an invalid index error on the first line.
You are correct, the function returns nothing, and appears pointless. In fact, I would have expected return line; to generate a complier error.
The string type appears "dynamic" meaning, it will indeed allocate more and more memory as needed. Technically, it is actually the string "+" operator, (a function that takes two strings as parameters) that is allocating this space. This function returns a new string, of the appropriate size. The garbage collector will DEallocate "old" strings when they are no longer referenced by any variables.