Arrays

Arrays are fundamental data structures used to store elements in contiguous memory locations.

Characteristics

• Fast index-based access (constant time)
• Static size (fixed at creation time)
• Elements must be of the same type (in many languages)
• Memory efficient for random access operations

Common Operations

Operation	Description	Time Complexity
Access	Retrieve element at index	O(1)
Insert	Add element at specific position	O(n)
Delete	Remove element at specific position	O(n)
Search	Find element by value	O(n)
Update	Change value at specified index	O(1)

Visual Representation

┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐
│ 10 │ 20 │ 30 │ 40 │ 50 │
└────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘
  0    1    2    3    4    ← Indices

Implementation

Python's Array class provides an implementation with fixed capacity and common array operations.

# Example usage:
arr = Array(5)  # Create array with capacity 5
arr.insert_at(0, 10)
arr.insert_at(1, 20)
element = arr.get(0)  # Returns 10

Applications

• Storing and accessing sequential data
• Matrix operations
• Lookup tables and hash tables
• Image processing
• Buffer implementations

Example Notebook

👉 See Array Example Notebook