Overview of One Dimensional Array

Array: A data structure which stores homogenous data types in continuous memory allocation is known as an Array. It stored several related items using a single name. Different elements can be accessed using the index.

Consider a cupboard in your local library. It has different sections for different genres of book. Each section can accommodate a specific number of books.
Now consider the section of Mathematics wherein one would only find books on mathematics. 
From the above figure, we can derive the following analogy with Array:
Mathematics genre - data type
width of a book- size of data type
size of section- the size of the array
colour of a book- data
The index of memory starts at 0.
While using C and C++ programming languages, the size of the array is fixed.
The size of the array in Python, Java, Kotlin, JavaScript and PHP is not fixed.


Applications of Array:

  • To maintain a list of data. For example: To search if a person has registered in a list of registered names.
  • Sort the numbers to find the median.
  • Use for CPU scheduling.
  • Use to implement abstract data structures like stacks and queues.

Advantages of a single-dimensional array:

  • Convenient searching and sorting of elements.
  • Makes code reusable.
  • Use lesser memory then linked list, tree, graph etc.

Disadvantages of a single-dimensional array:

  •  The programmer has to guess the required size. Large size leads to wastage of memory space. Less size than required leads to problems in execution.

  • Difficult Insertion and deletion. Shifting of elements requires additional computation during the stated operations.


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