Why is an array called a data structure?

Answer 1

An array could be called static because it is generally not changed structurally once it is created, meaning that you do not add, delete or swap the nodes themselves, though you will likely modify the data contained by the nodes. This differs from a more dynamic data structure, such as a linked list, where adding, deleting or swapping nodes is relatively simple.

Answer 2

The structure of an instance of array is FIXED (static, not changing) throughout its life time. The content of that array may be changed over the life time (it maybe very brief, or across decades), but the internal structure, the number of the elements are steady, stable, or static (not changed).

Answer 3

it is called linear ds because the memory allocation of the data in array is contiguous unlike list and trees.the memory is alocatted initially and the elements are fed into it in a linear order till the limit of array is encountered.insertion in between is not possible.

Answer 4

listen first of all array is a linear data structure where which store homogeneous data items in a continuous memory and assign a single name to it. so this point of view it uses the concept of data structure for this it is called built in data structure.

Answer 5

In programming, the most basic data types are called "primitive types". This is because they can be used to built more complicated types called "structures".

This is similar to bricks and studs being the basic, or primitive, building blocks of larger structures like houses.

Arrays contain one or more values, each of which is based on a primitive data type. In C, all of the values of an array must have the same type (char, int, float, pointers, etc.).

Answer 6

The term data structure is a general term that we often use to describe any data sequence container. An array is a data sequence container therefore it is a data structure. The only real difference between an array and most other data structures is that there is no overhead required to maintain the structure. This is because arrays are allocated in contiguous memory addresses and it is trivial to calculate the address of one element relative to any other element by their offsets. That is, given the address of the first element in the array (offset index 0) we can find the nth element at offset index n-1. In other words, we can calculate the address of any element in the array and thus achieve constant-time random-access.

With most other data structures, the elements are not allocated contiguously so we must keep track of each element using individual pointers to each element. Typically, each element has an associated node data structure containing a pointer to the data itself and at least one other pointer which refers to the next node in the sequence. So long as we keep track of the first node in the sequence (the head node), we can locate any data element by traversing the node pointers and dereferencing the data pointers. This incurs an overhead in performance because we no longer have constant-time random-access to any element, but also costs additional memory because we must store the nodes as well as the data. The advantage is that, unlike an array, we don't have to move any elements in memory when we insert new data into the sequence.

Answer 7

Why earth is called earth?! Just a name to identify a thing. That term represents a "pattern" of a structure that widely known (among software developers).