EE1102
Introduction to Computer
Programming
Multi-Dimensional Arrays
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 1
Multi-dimensional Arrays
• char multi[4][10];
– multi[4] – an array of ten characters
– 4 such arrays
multi[0] = {‘0’, ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘4’, ‘5’, ‘6’, ‘7’, ‘8’, ‘9’}
multi[1] = {‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘e’, ‘f’, ‘g’, ‘h’, ‘i’, ‘j’}
multi[2] = {‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’, ‘I’, ‘J’}
multi[3] = {‘9’, ‘8’, ‘7’, ‘6’, ‘5’, ‘4’, ‘3’, ‘2’, ‘1’, ‘0’}
• Individual elements are addressable:
– multi[0][3] = ‘3’
Ted Jenson’s tutorial on pointers
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 2
http://pweb.netcom.com/~tjensen/ptr/cpoint.htm
Linear Contiguous Memory
multi[0] = {‘0’, ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘4’, ‘5’, ‘6’, ‘7’, ‘8’, ‘9’}
multi[1] = {‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘e’, ‘f’, ‘g’, ‘h’, ‘i’, ‘j’}
multi[2] = {‘A’,‘B’,‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’, ‘I’, ‘J’}
multi[3] = {‘9’, ‘8’, ‘7’, ‘6’, ‘5’, ‘4’, ‘3’, ‘2’, ‘1’, ‘0’}
• The data is stored in the memory as
0123456789abcdefghijABCDEFGHIJ9876543210
starting at the address &multi[0][0]
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 3
Address Pointers
multi[0] = {‘0’, ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘4’, ‘5’, ‘6’, ‘7’, ‘8’, ‘9’}
multi[1] = {‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘e’, ‘f’, ‘g’, ‘h’, ‘i’, ‘j’}
multi[2] = {‘A’,‘B’,‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’, ‘I’, ‘J’}
multi[3] = {‘9’, ‘8’, ‘7’, ‘6’, ‘5’, ‘4’, ‘3’, ‘2’, ‘1’, ‘0’}
• multi is the address of location with ‘0’
• multi+1 is the address of ‘a’
– It adds 10, the number of columns, to get this location. If we
were dealing with integers and an array with the same
dimension the compiler would add 10*sizeof(int)
• To get to the content of the 2nd element in the 4th row we
need to use *(*(multi + 3) + 1)
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 4
Address Computation
• With a little thought we can see that:
*(*(multi + row) + col) and
multi[row][col]
yield the same results
• Because of the double de-referencing required in
the pointer version, the name of a 2-dimensional
array is often said to be equivalent to a pointer to
a pointer
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 5
multi[row][col] *(*(multi + row) + col)
• To understand more fully what is going on, let us
replace
*(multi + row) with X
i.e., *(*(multi+row)+col) = *(X + col)
• X is like a pointer since the expression is de-
referenced and col is an integer
• Here “pointer arithmetic” is used
• That is, the address pointed to (i.e., value of)
X + col = X + col * sizeof(int)
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 6
multi[row][col] *(*(multi + row) + col)
• Since we know the memory layout for 2 dimensional
arrays, we can determine that in the expression (multi +
row) as used above, (multi + row + 1) must increase by
an amount equal to that needed to "point to" the next
row, which for integers would be an amount equal to
COLS * sizeof(int)
• That says that if the expression *(*(multi + row) + col)
is to be evaluated correctly at run time, the compiler
must generate code which takes into consideration the
value of COLS, i.e., the 2nd dimension
remember passing arrays as
parameters?
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 7
multi[row][col] *(*(multi + row) + col)
• Thus, to evaluate either expression, a total of 5
values must be known:
– Address of the first element of the array, which is
returned by the expression multi, i.e., name of the array
– The size of the type of the elements of the array, in this
case, sizeof(int)
– The 2nd dimension of the array
– The specific index value for the first dimension, row in
this case
– The specific index value for the second dimension, col
in this case
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog Ted Jenson’s tutorial on pointers 8
http://pweb.netcom.com/~tjensen/ptr/cpoint.htm
multi[row][col] *(*(multi + row) + col)
• Question:
– When we say value = *ptr; the pointer ptr is de-
referenced to get the data stored
– What happens in *(*(array + row) + column)?
– Why is *(array + row) not de-referenced to give, say,
an integer?
• Answer:
– It is de-referenced
– Remember a 2-D array is a pointer to a pointer
– *(array + row) de-references to a pointer to a 1-D array
– *(array + row) + 1 would do a pointer increment
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 9
Array multi[4][10]
…0123456789abcdefghijABCDEFGHIJ9876543210…
multi multi +1 multi +2 multi +3
Address(multi+1) = address(multi) + 10
Because the character array has 10 columns
Each of these is a pointer to a pointer (or pointer to a 1-D
array)
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 10
Revisiting Functions on Arrays
• Initializing a 2-dimensional array
void set_value(int m_array[][COLS])
{
int row, col;
for (row = 0; row < ROWS; row++)
{
for (col = 0; col < COLS; col++)
{
m_array[row][col] = 1;
}
}
}
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 11
Recap
• Arrays
• Functions
• Sorting
• Pointers
• Strings
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 12
Arrays
• A data structure containing items of same data type
• Declaration: array name, storage reservation
– int marks[7] = {22,15,75,56,10,33,45}; 22 0
• a contiguous group of memory locations
15 1
• named “marks” for holding 7 integer items
75 2
– elements/components - variables
• marks[0], marks[1], … , marks[6] 56 3
• marks[i], where i is a position/subscript (0i6)
10 4
– the value of marks[2] is 75
33 5
– new values can be assigned to elements
• marks[3] = 36; 45 6
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 13
Multi-Dimensional Arrays
• Arrays with two or more dimensions can be
defined
A[4][3] B[2][4][3]
0 1 2 0 1 2 0 1 2
0 0
1 1
2 2
3 3
0 1
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 14
Two Dimensional Arrays
• Declaration: int A[4][3] : 4 rows and
3 columns, 43 array
• Elements: A[i][j] - element in row i A[4][3]
and column j of array A 0 1 2
• Rows/columns numbered from 0 0
• Storage: row-major ordering
1
– elements of row 0, elements of row 1,
etc 2
• Initialization: 3
int B[2][3]={{4,5,6},{0,3,5}};
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 15
Functions
• Break large computing tasks into small ones
• Transfer of control is affected by calling a function
– With a function call, we pass some parameters
– These parameters are used within the function
– A value is computed
– The value is returned to the function which initiated the
call
– A function could call itself, these are called recursive
function calls
• Function prototype, function definition, and
function call
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 16
Passing Arguments to Functions
• In C, function arguments are passed “by value”
– values of the arguments given to the called function
in temporary variables rather than the originals
– the modifications to the parameter variables do not
affect the variables in the calling function
• “Call by reference”
– variables are passed by reference
• subject to modification by the function
– achieved by passing the “address of” variables
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 17
Selection Vs Insertion Sort
• Scanning from left to right
• Selection sort i
– Swaps the ith element with the largest unsorted element
• Insertion sort i
– Inserts the ith element into its proper place
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 18
What is a Pointer?
• Recap: a variable int k Addr
– Names a memory location that can k 38 100
hold one value at a time
– Memory is allocated statically at *p
compile time
– One name one value
• A pointer variable int *p p 250
100 200
– Contains the address of a memory
*p
location that contains the actual value
m 84 250
– Memory can be allocated at runtime
– One name many values
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 19
l-value and r-value
• Given a variable k
– Its l-value refers to the address of the memory location
– l-value is used on the left side of an assignment
• Ex. k = expression
– Its r-value refers to the value stored in the memory
location
– r-value is used in the right hand side of an assignment
• Ex. var = k + …
• Pointers allow one to manipulate the l-value!
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 20
Accessing Arrays Using Pointers
• The name of the array is the address of the first
element in the array
• In C, we can replace
ptr = &myArray[0];
with
ptr = myArray;
to achieve the same result
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 21
Strings
• A string is a array of characters terminated by the
null character, ‘\0’
• A string is written in double quotes
– Example: “This is a string”
• “ ” – empty string
• Anything within single quotes gets a number
associated with it
• ‘This is rejected by the C Compiler’
• Character arrays can also be accessed by pointers
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 22
Strcpy Using Pointers
char *myStrcpy(char *destination, char *source)
{
char *p = destination;
while (*source != '\0')
{
*p++ = *source++;
}
*p = '\0';
return destination;
}
Ted Jenson’s tutorial on pointers
http://pweb.netcom.com/~tjensen/ptr/cpoint.htm
EE1102 Intro to Comp Prog 23
