In this article, we will discuss one of the most popular Linear Data Structures: the Array. We will explore what an array is, how it manages its data, and most importantly, where an array can be effectively used in application development.
• Array is one of the most commonly used Linear Data Structures.
• In an Array, data is stored using index representation. The index represents the position of the data and typically starts from different values in different programming languages. For example, in Java, it starts from 0.
• An Array stores data in contiguous memory locations.
• Since an Array uses index representation, we can easily retrieve data from the array randomly.
As we know, a variable is used to store a single value. However, when an application needs to handle a large amount of data, variables become insufficient. In such cases, developers can choose an Array to manage large amounts of data according to the business logic.
Let’s consider an example to understand the application of an Array in development.
Suppose a developer needs to create an application that extracts student data from an Excel sheet containing 50,000 student records and sends a common email prompt with the corresponding data to each student's email ID.
To send the emails, the application must first retrieve all the details from the Excel sheet and store them for further processing to achieve meaningful results. Given the large amount of student data, using individual variables would be impractical. Instead, we would use an Array to handle this task efficiently. By creating an Array with a length of 50,000, we can store all the student data in a manageable structure.
In this example, we've seen how an Array helps store and process large amounts of data dynamically.
