Talk:Multi-dimensional array: Difference between revisions

 

There was apparently a misconception in the comment: one must not confuse array ''storage'' order with array indexing. Maybe the use of some programming languages has given the author of this comment the habit to ''think'' that arrays are naturally stored in row-major order, but this is indeed a convention. Some languages follow another convention. Some libraries use still other storage mechanisms to save place (for sparse arrays, triangular arrays, band arrays...). Still, array indexing will probably always be done like in mathematics, that is, A(i,j) is element at row i and column j, whatever the storage peculiarities may be.

 

[1] In the very first [http://www.eah-jena.de/~kleine/history/languages/FortranAutomaticCodingSystemForTheIBM704.pdf Fortran manual], dated october 1956, one can see the array storage was already column-major. See page 11. However, one can also read that array were always stored backwards: yet another convention, surprise surprise.