Multidimensional Arrays

Multidimensional Arrays

A multidimensional array is an array with more than one dimension, such as a matrix.

In this lesson, you will learn:

• How to declare and initialize 2D and 3D arrays.
• How to access elements in multidimensional arrays.
• How to use nested loops to process multidimensional arrays.

A 2D array is a table-like structure with rows and columns.

Example declaration:

int matrix[3][3];

This creates a 3×3 integer matrix.

2D arrays can be initialized using nested curly brackets:

int matrix[2][3] = { {1, 2, 3}, {4, 5, 6} };

This creates a 2×3 matrix.

Elements in a 2D array are accessed using row and column indices.

Example:

int value = matrix[1][2];

This retrieves the element in the second row and third column.

This program demonstrates how to store and access values in a 2D array.

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int matrix[2][3] = {
        {1, 2, 3},
        {4, 5, 6}
    };
    printf("Element at [1][2]: %d\n", matrix[1][2]);
    return 0;
}

We can use nested loops to iterate over a 2D array:

for (int i = 0; i < rows; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < cols; j++) { printf("%d ", matrix[i][j]); } }

This program prints all elements of a 2D array.

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int matrix[2][3] = {
        {1, 2, 3},
        {4, 5, 6}
    };
    for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++) {
        for (int j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
            printf("%d ", matrix[i][j]);
        }
        printf("\n");
    }
    return 0;
}

A 3D array extends the concept of a 2D array to another dimension.

Example declaration:

int cube[2][3][4];

This creates a 2×3×4 three-dimensional array.

Summary

In this lesson, you learned:

• How to declare and initialize 2D arrays.
• How to access and manipulate multidimensional arrays.
• How to use nested loops to process a matrix.

Next, we will explore strings in C!