Arrays

Abstract

Up to now, we have discussed only data objects for which a variable name corresponds to a single value and a single memory location consisting of one or more bytes, as appropriate for the data type of the variable. In this chapter, we will develop a new model for data representation which allows us to manage many pieces of related information. This important user-defined data object, called an array, is a collection of related values organized under a single name. Although arrays can be implemented as purely abstract entities, in science and engineering they more often serve as implementations for vectors or representations for tabulated data. In this section, we will develop the basic concepts of arrays by posing a specific data management problem and describing a way of organizing the information required to solve that problem.