Talk:Array: Difference between revisions

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: Should this become an umbrella (encyclopedic) page for several kind of data structures that can be defined in some general way ''array''? Or by the word ''array'' alone one should think always of a sequence of (etherogeneous or not, depending on the language) objects "labelled" with a integer index? (Not real labelling, otherwise we fall in the associative array hug which is already on [[Associative array|another page]]). Maybe suggestions about organization can be taken from [[wp:Array|wikipedia]], where array is just one of several possible linear data structures... --[[User:ShinTakezou|ShinTakezou]] 23:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

:: I think that Wikipedia represents rather poor example, by taking only one meaning of the word array. "Associative array" is a well established term in CS. But already this narrow definition is wider than what you refers as an array. Wikipedia means kind of container:

* built-in/primitive,

* dense/contiguous in memory,

* dense/contiguous index,

* elements of same type,

* elements of same size.

</blockquote>

:: For example index is certainly not integer, when arrays are indexed by an enumeration type or are multi-dimensional. I suppose that what most of people associate with an array of this kind is in fact an ordered container indexed as [[O]](1), rather than a data structure of certain type. (:-)) --[[User:Dmitry-kazakov|Dmitry-kazakov]] 10:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)