# How to create the empty array
**URL:** https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-create-the-empty-array/180
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [May 8, 2020, 11:03pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-create-the-empty-array/180 "2020-05-08T23:03:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mikejiang](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/mikejiang)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 11:03pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-create-the-empty-array/180/1 "2020-05-08T23:03:49Z")
I have some edge cases where empty arrays need be represented in tiledb, e.g. matrix of (0 x ncols) or (nrows x 0).
I am having trouble to model those since tiledb::dimension (for dense) doesn’t allow empty domains {1,0},
but if I set domain as {1,1}, it can’t really model the empty array, right?
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### Author:  [@stavros](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/stavros)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 11:10pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-create-the-empty-array/180/2 "2020-05-08T23:10:11Z")
Regardless of what domain you specify for the array, unless you write anything to the array, the array is “empty”. You can determine this by checking the “non-empty domain”: [https://docs.tiledb.com/main/api-usage/reading-arrays/basic-reading#getting-the-non-empty-domain](https://docs.tiledb.com/main/api-usage/reading-arrays/basic-reading#getting-the-non-empty-domain)
That returns a bounding hyper-rectangle for all the writes you have performed. If that is empty/null then you know that your array is actually empty.
I hope this helps.
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### Author:  [@mikejiang](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/mikejiang)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2020, 3:40am UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-create-the-empty-array/180/3 "2020-05-09T03:40:12Z")
Awesome! This resolves my problems. Hope you can help with vector issue (see its separate post) when you get a chance.