Working With Arrays | Arrays And Slices

Introduction

Arrays are a fundamental data structure in the Go programming language. They are a collection of elements of the same type, stored in contiguous memory locations. In this tutorial, we will explore how to work with arrays in Go, from declaration to common operations.

Declaring Arrays

To declare an array in Go, you need to specify the size and the type of the elements. Here's an example:

var arr [5]int

This declares an array named arr that can hold 5 integers. By default, the elements of the array are initialized to the zero value of the specified type (0 for integers).

Initializing Arrays

You can initialize an array at the time of declaration. Here are a few ways to do it:

var arr = [5]int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

You can also use the ellipsis operator [...] to let Go determine the length of the array:

var arr = [...]int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

Accessing Array Elements

You can access and modify elements of an array using the index. Indexes start at 0. Here's an example:


                    arr[0] = 10

                    fmt.Println(arr[0])

Output:
10

Iterating Over Arrays

You can use a for loop to iterate over the elements of an array. Here's an example:


                    for i := 0; i < len(arr); i++ {

                        fmt.Println(arr[i])

                    }

You can also use the range keyword to iterate over an array:


                    for index, value := range arr {

                        fmt.Println(index, value)

                    }

Multidimensional Arrays

Go supports multidimensional arrays. A common example is a two-dimensional array, which can be declared as follows:

var matrix [3][3]int

You can initialize and access elements of a multidimensional array in a similar manner to single-dimensional arrays:


                    matrix[0][0] = 1

                    fmt.Println(matrix[0][0])

Output:
1

Common Array Operations

Here are some common operations you can perform on arrays:

Finding the length of an array using the len function:

length := len(arr)

Copying an array:


                        var newArr [5]int

                        copy(newArr[:], arr[:])

Conclusion

Arrays are a powerful and fundamental part of the Go programming language. They allow you to store multiple values of the same type in a contiguous block of memory. In this tutorial, we've covered how to declare, initialize, access, and iterate over arrays, as well as how to work with multidimensional arrays and perform common operations. With this knowledge, you can effectively use arrays in your Go programs.

Working with Arrays in Go