Array Part1
Array Part1
What is Array in C?
An array in C is a fixed-size collection of similar data items stored in contiguous memory locations. It
can be used to store the collection of primitive data types such as int, char, float, etc., and also
derived and user-defined data types such as pointers, structures, etc.
C Array Declaration
In C, we have to declare the array like any other variable before using it. We can declare an array by
specifying its name, the type of its elements, and the size of its dimensions. When we declare an
array in C, the compiler allocates the memory block of the specified size to the array name.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
int x[5];
char y[5];
C Array Initialization
Initialization in C is the process to assign some initial value to the variable. When the array is
declared or allocated memory, the elements of the array contain some garbage value. So, we need to
initialize the array to some meaningful value. There are multiple ways in which we can initialize an
array in C.
If we initialize an array using an initializer list, we can skip declaring the size of the array as the
compiler can automatically deduce the size of the array in these cases. The size of the array in these
cases is equal to the number of elements present in the initializer list as the compiler can
automatically deduce the size of the array.
The size of the above arrays is 5 which is automatically deduced by the compiler.
We can use for loop, while loop, or do-while loop to assign the value to each element of the array.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
// specifying size
int arr1[] = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };
arr2[i] = i * 2.1;
return 0;
We can access any element of an array in C using the array subscript operator [ ] and the index
value i of the element.
array_name [index];
One thing to note is that the indexing in the array always starts with 0, i.e., the first element is at
index 0 and the last element is at N – 1 where N is the number of elements in the array.
// subscript
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
return 0;
Output
Element at arr[2]: 35
Element at arr[4]: 55
Element at arr[0]: 15