What can arrays really do?

Anon

I have read the manual, I have read a few books on it. Though I cannot quite grasp the conecpt of arrays. Please do not flame me for this. I really just want some everyday reasons where an Array could be used. Also what the heck is Pascal? I am hearing a lot about it and don't know what it is. Thanks!
PHP_OWNS_MICROBLOWS

bretticus

How old are you?

Anon

Dear PHP_OWNS_MICROBLOWS;

As far as I know, array is nothing but another form of variable if you know what variable is.

The difference between array and normal variable is that:

A variable stores only one value at a time but array can store one or more values.

Example:

$grade as a variable can store only 89 or 90 or 100 not both at a time.

$grade = array (89, 90, 100, ....)

This is an example of one dimensional array.

Cheers

Anon

Do you think that age is a factor of Education?

Thank you.

Anon

Might be there, Solomon.

A lot of young dudes today would guess that Lee Harvey Oswald is a rock band. :-)

And speaking of "King Solomon," they would have no clue. Well, that's what you get with our socialistic school system.

Anon

Actually I am 19. No age doesnt matter. Knowledge is knowledge...its just how you use what you know. True knowledge never changes along with time. As well as its well documented in a format people will be able to understand. You did read Shakespeare didn't you? That wasn't written recently I am sure. I asked this forum question because I wanted to get the true knowledge.

Thank you.
PHP_OWNS_MICROBLOWS

Anon

Ask your mother. Her and I go a <b>LONG</b> way back! 😉
PHP_OWNS_MICROBLOWS

Anon

physical_age != mental_age obviously in this case.

frymaster

uh... the concept behind the "socialistic" education system is that education is provided to all regardless of ability to pay. i think this increases the chance that any given individual will know who lee harvy oswald is.

unless of course you're talking about a real socialistic eduction system a la francesco ferrer and escula moderna... in which case i'm wondering what country you live in 🙂

Anon

To answer your question, an array is like a large table which can hold several values under one name... Just like the first guy posted. The nice thing about this, is it can be used filled using a loop.

$x = 1;
while ($x == 10😉{
$array[$x] = $x * 2;
$x ++;
}

If you wanted to do this with a variable
s, you'd have to do the following:

$x = 1;
while ($x == 10😉{
$one = $x 2;
$two = $x 2;
$tree = $x * 2;
. . .
$x ++;
}

This is just a basic example, but I hope you get the idea. BTW, I'm 15 so age doesn't really matter; )

Viscount

Two bad your loop will never execute, should pre/post increment $x in while iteration structure. 🙁

Viscount

Arrays have been used traditional to grab blocks of memory in order to hold similiar data, the grades example above is a good one. In the dark ages before object oriented programming languages, arrays were the savior of many a savvy programmer alleviating him of excess typing by applying simple formulas to many pieces of data with iterative structures. The array is a simple yet powerful concent that is an integral part of all programming languages (at least that I can think of.)

Example 1: (non array approach)
Let's say I am a fruit salesperson and I offer
apples, oranges, tangerines, watermelons and grapes
I could set the prices up by explicitly defining them...(prices arbitrary)
$apple = .50;
$orange = .75;
$tangerine = .40;
$watermelon = .80;
$grapes = 1.20;
now lets say hurricane katrina causes a 20% jump in all prices of my precious fruit.

$apple = .2;
$orange = .2;
$tangerine = .2;
$watermelon = .2;
$grapes *= .2;

still not to bad, now imagine 1000 fruits!

The solution (well an answer at least)
Array approach.
$MyFruits = array("apples", "oranges", "tangerines", "watermelons","grapes");
$MyPrices = array(.50, .40, .75, .80, 1.20);
for ( $i=0; $i<count($MyPrices); $i++){
$MyPrices[$i] *= .2;
}

Good for 5 to a 'zillion, nuff said?