Arrays

We can define fixed size arrays in C like so.

int arr[6] = {10,20,30,40,50,60};

Visually a memory allocated array looks like this.

Arrays can be implemented as Lists, or sequentially in memory, which we'll call plain arrays. These have different tradeoffs.

As a list, it might look like this:

Complexity

Worst Case Array List

Space O(n) O(n) Traversal O(n) O(n) Lookup O(1) O(n) Append O(1) O(n) Prepend O(n) O(1) Insert O(n) O(n) Delete O(n) O(n)

Lists are fast at prepending. Arrays are fast at lookup and appending.
Most of the time we'll use an array.
Arrays tend to be faster to traverse and insert/delete into, because they are laid out contiguously in memory, whereas list nodes could be anywhere in memory.

Resizing

Lists do not need to be resized, but Arrays do. The caller can reserve as much memory as they might need for their array, but that deteriorates performance (more memory usage = less L1/L2/L3 cache hits).
Thus, when arrays are allocated, they generally have a length and a capacity.

struct Array {
  int* items;
  size_t length;
  size_t capacity;
}

When the capacity is hit, you have to allocate a bigger array, copy over items, and free the previous array. Then, update your pointer to the new array, and add the item.

void append(struct Array arr, int value) {
  if (arr.length == arr.capacity) {
    // resize array
    int* new_arr = malloc(sizeof(int) * capacity * 2);
    for (int i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
      new_arr[i] = arr[i];
    }
    free(arr->items);
    arr->items = new_arr;
    arr->items[length] = value;
    arr.length++;
    arr.capacity *= 2;
  } else {
    // don't resize array.
    arr.items[length] = value;
    arr.length++;
  }
}

Table of Contents

Arrays

Complexity

Resizing