C - Arrays

Arrays

An Array is a collection of elements of similar datatypes which are stored in continuous memory location and referred by a single name.

Arrays a kind of data structure that can store a fixed-size sequential collection of elements of the same type.

Declaration of an Array:-

datatype name [size];

·         Datatypes indicates the types of elements which are clubbed together in the array.

·         Array name is name given to the group of elements which are grouped together in the array.

Ex: -   int arr[5];

          char ch[7];

Here, ‘arr’ is the name given to group of 5 integer variables which are stored in the continuous memory location, and ‘ch’ is a name given to a group of character variables.

To access individual elements of an array, array name followed by subscript is used.

array_name [subscript];

Subscript indicates the position of elements in the array. In C language the position of 1^st element in array is assumed to be zero and the upper bound that is last element in group is assumed to be size ‘-1’.

Ex:-  int arr[5];

Arrays in Detail

Arrays need to be given a lot more attention as they are important in C. The following important concepts related to array should be very clear to a C programmer −

Sr.No.	Concept & Description
1	Multi-dimensional arrays C supports multidimensional arrays and the simplest form of the multidimensional array is the two-dimensional array.
2	Passing arrays to functions We can pass to the function a pointer to an array by specifying the array's name without an index.
3	Return array from a function C allows a function to return an array.
4	Pointer to an array We can generate a pointer to the first element of an array by simply specifying the array name, without any index.