Passing a '2 dimensional array' local variable to a class level variable - arrays

Question

I have a sub which reads an Excel file (X rows by 5 columns) and make a copy of its data into a String array called 'matrix' in VB.NET. I do need, however, to access of this array in some other subs as well. I was hoping to pass the array to a class level array variable and then retrieve info from that one instead. But I don't how to achieve this goal.
Public Sub ReadFromExcel()
Dim excel As Application = New Application
Try
Dim wrkbook As Workbook = excel.Workbooks.Open(IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location) & _
"EXCELFILE.xls")
Dim sheet As Worksheet = wrkbook.Sheets(1)
Dim cell As Range = sheet.UsedRange
Dim LastRow As Long = 0
sheet.Activate()
With sheet
LastRow = .Cells(.Rows.Count, 1).End(XlDirection.xlUp).Row
End With
Dim matrix(LastRow - 1, 4) As String
For i As Integer = 2 To LastRow
For j As Integer = 1 To 5
matrix(i - 1, j - 1) = cell(i, j).VALUE
Next
Next (i)
wrkbook.Close()
excel.Quit()
Catch ex As Exception
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
End Try
End Sub

Answer 1

You might try this:
Public Class Sample
Private xlsFileContents(0,0) as String
Public Sub ReadFromExel()
Dim excel As Application = New Application
Try
'all of your code here up to "excel.quit"
'now redim the class array to match your matrix array
'<array>.GetUpperBound gets the integer value of the highest index in that dimension of your array.
'It accepts a zero-bound integer to determine which dimension you are referring to.
ReDim xlsFileContents(matrix.GetUpperBound(0), matrix.GetUpperBound(1))
xlsFileContents = matrix
Catch
'your code here
End Try
End Class
I tried this in a simple console application where I manually entered data into the matrix array, and it worked for me.