C Arrays
Learning a programming language involves learning about the types of
data and the types of control structures that the language
provides. To this point, the only types of data that we have studied
have been integers and floating-point numbers. Instead, we have
concentrated on learning about ever more complicated control
structures. We began with simple straight-line programs, and then
added functions, conditionals, and loops.
In this lesson we will add a new type of data to our mix by studying
arrays, which provide a way of combining many individual variables
into a single aggregate collection. This makes it possible to write
small programs that nevertheless manipulate a large number of
variables. This is a crucial addition to our language, because it can
take a large number of variables to model the behavior of the natural
world. To motivate the utility of arrays, we will study the problem
of one-dimensional heat flow in a rod.
All of the programs contained in this lesson can also be copied to
your examples directory.
Click to copy the example programs.
Eric N. Eide
Hamlet Project
Department of Computer Science
University of Utah