C++: A concise introduction to Arrays

An array is a collection of elements (values or variables) of the same type that are stored in contiguous memory locations and may be accessed individually using a unique identifier's index. The memory addresses are all next to one other, and the array's size is determined by the number of elements. The first or base address is the memory address of an array's first element. An index, which is usually a non-negative scalar number, is used to select individual objects. The index of an array's initial element is almost always zero. The array value is mapped to a stored object via an index. The following is an example of the mapping.

map(arrayName, index) → element

An example of an array declaration.

datatype arrayName [elements];

There are three types of arrays in C++; one-dimensional, two-dimensional and multidimensional array.

A one-dimensional is also called a linear array.

int myArray0[5] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};

In a two dimensional array there are 'x' number of rows and 'j' number of columns. They are sometimes called matrices or tables.

int myArray1[2][2] = {{1, 2}, {3, 4}};

A multidimensional array can have any number of dimensions.

int myArray2[2][2][2][2] = {{1, 2}, {3, 4}, {5, 6}, {7, 8}}

Arrays can be used to implement other data structures such as lists, hash tables, stacks and strings.

Happy Coding.

Comments

[huncyrus]

Near simple types, it is possible to use another lists - what behave like arrays - e.g.: iterable lists like std::list or std::(de)queue.

[Sandor Dargo]

But if you really need something that behaves like arrays, use std::array from the <array> header.