Part 12
Arrays

Subjects covered...

	Arrays
	DIM

Suppose that you have a list of numbers - for instance, the marks of
ten people in a class. To store them in the +3 you could use the
variables 'm1', 'm2', 'm3'... and so on up to 'm10', but the program
to set up these ten variables would be rather long and tedious to type
in, i.e....

	 10 LET m1=75
	 20 LET m2=44
	 30 LET m3=90
	 40 LET m4=38
	 50 LET m5=55
	 60 LET m6=64
	 70 LET m7=70
	 80 LET m8=12
	 90 LET m9=75
	100 LET m10=60

Instead, these is a mechanism, known as an array whereby you may
specify a variable which (instead of containing a single value as
variables normally do) may contain a number of separate elements, each
of which may contain different values. Each element is referenced by
an index number (the subscript) written in brackets after the variable
name. For the above example, the array variable's name could be 'm' -
(the name of an array variable must be a single letter), and the ten
variables would then be 'm(1)', 'm(2)', 'm(3)'... and so on up to
'm(10)'.

The elements of an array are called subscripted variables, as opposed
to the simple variables that you are already familiar with.

Before you can use an array, you must reserve some space for it in the
+3's memory, and you do this by using the keyword DIM (for dimension).
The statement...

	DIM m(10)

...sets up an array called 'm' whose dimensions are 10 (i.e. there are
10 subscripted variables). The DIM statement initialises each element
in the array to zero. It also deletes any array called 'm' that
existed previously - (however, it doesn't delete any simple variable
called 'm'. An array variable can coexist alongside a simple numerical
variable of the same name because the array can always be
distinguished by its subscript).

The array elements' subscripts may be represented by any numerical
expression yielding a valid subscript number. This means that an
array can be processed using a FOR...NEXT loop. Thus, instead of the
above long-winded process, we can now set up the variables
'm(1)'...'m(10)' using...

	10 DIM m(10)
	20 FOR n=1 TO 10
	30 READ m(n)
	40 NEXT n
	50 DATA 75,44,90,38,55,64,70,12,75,60

...to READ in the elements' values from a DATA list, or...

	10 DIM m(10)
	20 FOR n=1 TO 10
	30 INPUT m(n)
	40 NEXT n

...to INPUT the elements' values by hand.

Note that the DIM statement must come before any attempt to access the
array in a program.

If you wish, you may examine the contents of the array using...

	10 FOR n=1 TO 10
	20 PRINT m(n)
	30 NEXT n

...or individually using...

	PRINT m(1)
	PRINT m(2)
	PRINT m(3)

...etc....

You can also set up arrays with more than one dimension. In a two
dimensional array you need two numbers to specify an element - rather
like the line and column numbers that specify a character position on
the screen. If you imagine the line and column number (two
dimensional) as referring to a printed page, you could then, for
example, have an extra dimension to represent the page numbers. Think
of the elements of a three dimensional array 'v' as being specified by
'v(page number,line number,column number)'.

Fro example, to set up a two-dimensional array 'c' with dimensions 3
and 6, you use the DIM statement...

	DIM c(3,6)

This then gives you 3x6=18 subscripted variables...

	c(1,1), c(1,2)... to c(1,6)
	c(2,1), c(2,2)... to c(2,6)
	c(3,1), c(3,2)... to c(3,6)


The same principle works for any number of dimensions.

Although you can have a number and an array with the same name, you
cannot have two arrays with the same name, even if they have a
different number of dimensions.

There are also string arrays. The strings in an array differ from
simple strings in that they are of fixed length and assignment to them
is always Procrustean (i.e. chopped off or padded with spaces).

The name of a string array is a single letter followed by '$'. Unlike
numeric arrays, a string array and a string cannot have the same name.

Suppose then, that you want an array 'a$' of five strings. You must
decide how long these strings are to be - let us suppose that 10
characters for each element is long enough. You then say...

	DIM a$(5,10)	(type this in)

This sets up a 5x10 array of characters, but you can also think of
each row as being a string...

	a$(1) equals a$(1,1), a$(1,2)... to a$(1,10)
	a$(2) equals a$(2,1), a$(2,2)... to a$(2,10)
	a$(3) equals a$(3,1), a$(3,2)... to a$(3,10)
	a$(4) equals a$(4,1), a$(4,2)... to a$(4,10)
	a$(5) equals a$(5,1), a$(5,2)... to a$(5,10)

If you give the same number of subscripts (two in this case) as there
were dimensions in the DIM statement, then you get a single character,
but if you miss the last one out, then you get a fixed length string.
So, for instance, 'a$(2,7)' is the 7th character in the string
'a$(2)'. Using the slicing notation, we could also write this as
'a$(2)(7)'. Now type...

	LET a$(2)="1234567890"

...and...

	PRINT a$(2), a$(2,7)

You get...

	1234567890     7

For the last subscript (the one you can miss out), you can also have a
slicer, so that for instance...

	a$(2,4 TO 8) is equal to a$(2)(4 TO 8) is equal to "45678"

Remember - In a string array, all the strings have the same fixed
length.

The DIM statement has an extra number (the last one) to specify this
length. When you write down a subscripted variable for a string array,
you can put in an extra number (a slicer) to correspond with the extra
number in the DIM statement.

You can have string arrays with no extra dimensions. Type...

	DIM a$(10)

...and you will find that 'a$' behaves just like a string variable,
except that it always has length 10, and assignment to it is always
Procrustean.


Exercise...

1. Use READ and DATA statements to set up an array 'm$' of twelve
strings in which 'm$(n)' is the name of the nth month. (Hint - The DIM
statement will be 'DIM m$(12,9)'. Test it by printing out all the
values of 'm$(n)' (use a loop).)
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