Array (data type)

Article summary

In computer science, array is a data type that represents a collection of elements (values or variables), each selected by one or more indices (identifying keys) that can be computed at run time during program execution. Such a collection is usually called an array variable or array value. By analogy with the mathematical concepts vector and matrix, array types with one and two indices are often called vector type and matrix type, respectively. More generally, a multidimensional array (or n-dimensional array) type can be called a tensor type, by analogy with the mathematical concept, tensor. Language support for array types may include certain built-in array data types, some syntactic constructions (array type constructors) that the programmer may use to define such types and declare array variables, and special notation for indexing array elements. For example, in the Pascal programming language, the declaration , defines a new array data type called MyTable . The declaration var A: MyTable then defines a variable A of that type, which is an aggregate of eight elements, each being an integer variable identified by two indices. In the Pascal program, those elements are denoted A[1,1] , A[1,2] , A[2,1] , …, A[4,2] . Special array types are often defined by the language's standard libraries. Dynamic lists are also more common and easier to implement than dynamic arrays.…

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