What are arrays in Python?
Arrays are a collection of similar items. In Python, most people use lists instead of arrays. A user can treat lists as arrays but cannot constrain the data type of values stored in a list. Only the same type of data can be stored in arrays. A pictorial representation of arrays is shown below:
- The length of this array is 5.
- The data type of values stored in this array is
integer.
Defining arrays in Python
To create arrays in Python, we need to import the array module to create arrays. An example of this shown below:
import array as arr # importing the array modulea = arr.array('i',[1,3,5,2,4]) #defining an array of integers with 5 values
'i'is the type for the data type of values in the array. In this case, the array type is ofint.
Accessing array values
Arrays values are accessed using the array indexes:
arrayName[indexValue]
- index of arrays in Python start from 0.
For Example:
Suppose we want to access the value at the 3rd index of the array. The illustration and code snippet below shows how this is done.
import array as arra = arr.array('i',[1,3,5,2,4]) # defining an array of integers with 5 valuesprint("Value at index 3 is: ")print(a[3])
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