In computer science, an array is a data structure which consists of a collection of homogenous data accessed via an index. The index is usually a scalar value, such as an integer. The index specifies one of the elements, or values, within the array. For instance, in the C++ programming language, the nth element of an array named array would be accessed via the following source code:
array[ n ]
Arrays may be single-dimensional, or mutli-dimensional (aka poly-dimensional). A 2-dimensional array with data consisting of numbers can be thought of as a form of mathematical Matrix. Although implementations vary, a multi-dimensional array can be conceptualized as an array of other arrays. For instance, a 3-dimensional array could be accessed as
array[ x ][ y ][ z ]
or (in a short-hand version) as
array[ x, y, z ]
Array may also refer to a collection of hardware components, such as a Disk array, or as a synonym to vector.
Categories: [Computers] [Data Structures]