Introduction to Arrays

Arrays are one of the fundamental data structures in computer science. They are a collection of elements of the same type, grouped together under a single name. One of the key properties of arrays is that they have a fixed size, meaning the number of elements they can hold is determined at the time of declaration.

In C++, arrays are represented by contiguous blocks of memory, where each element occupies a specific position. The elements of an array are accessed through their indices, which start from 0.

1#include <iostream>
2using namespace std;
3
4int main() {
5    // Arrays in C++
6    int numbers[5] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
7    cout << "The first element is: " << numbers[0] << endl;
8    return 0;
9}

In the above example, we declare an array called numbers with 5 elements and initialize them with values 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. To access the first element of the array, we use the index 0 and print its value.

Arrays provide efficient random access to elements, making them suitable for scenarios where elements need to be accessed by their indices, such as storing a collection of data points, like the coordinates of pixels in an image.

Arrays also support various operations like insertion, deletion, and sorting, which we will explore in detail in the next screens.

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#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

​

int main() {

    // Arrays in C++

    int numbers[5] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};

    cout << "The first element is: " << numbers[0] << endl;

    return 0;

}