Comparison of programming languages (array)

Syntax

Array dimensions

The following list contains Syntax examples on how to determine the dimensions (index of the first element, the last element and or the size in elements):

Size	First	Last	Languages
name'Length	name'First	name'Last	Ada
UPB name - LWB name+1 or 2 UPB name - 2 LWB name+1 etc	LWB name or 2 LWB name etc	UPB name or 2 UPB name etc	ALGOL 68
UBound(name)-LBound(name)+1	LBound(name)	UBound(name)	Visual Basic
name.Length	name.GetLowerBound(dimension)	name.GetUpperBound(dimension)	C#, Visual Basic .NET, Windows PowerShell, F#
name.length	0	name.length - 1	Java, JavaScript, D
scalar(@name)	$[	$#name	Perl
@name.elems	0	@name.end	Perl 6
name.size	0 (name.first will also refer to this element)	-1 or name.size - 1 (name.last will also refer to this element)	Ruby
len(name)	0	-1 or len(name) - 1	Python
length(name)	0	-1 or length(name)-1	S-Lang
(vector-length vector)	0	(- (vector-length vector) 1)	Scheme
(length name)	0	(1- (length name))	Common Lisp
Array.length name	0	Array.length name - 1	OCaml
rangeSize (bounds name)	fst (bounds name)	snd (bounds name)	Haskell
[name count]	0	[name count] - 1	Objective-C (NSArray * only)

Indexing

The following list contains Syntax examples on how a single element of an array can be accessed.

Format	Languages
name[index] or name[index1, index2] etc	ALGOL 68, Pascal, C#
name[index]	C, C++, D, Java, JavaScript, Perl1, PHP, Python1, Ruby1, S-Lang1
$name[index]	Perl1, PHP, Windows PowerShell1
@name[index]	Perl 6
name(index)	Ada, Fortran, Visual Basic, Visual Basic .NET
name.(index)	OCaml
name.[index]	F#
name ! index	Haskell
(vector-ref name index)	Scheme
(aref name index)	Common Lisp
[name objectAtIndex:index]	Objective-C (NSArray * only)

1. The index may be a negative number, indicating the corresponding number of places before the end of the array.

Slicing

The following list contains Syntax examples on how a range of element of an array can be accessed.

In the following table:

• first - the index of the first element in the slice
• last - the index of the last element in the slice
• end - one more than the index of last element in the slice
• len - the length of the slice (= end - first)

Format	Languages
name[first:last]	ALGOL 681
name[first:end]	Python2,4
name[first..last]	D
$name[first..last]	Windows PowerShell
@name[first..last]	Perl3
name[first..last] name[first...end] name[first, len]	Ruby (programming language)4
name(first..last)	Ada1
name(first:last)	Fortran1,2
name'''first''':'''last'''	S-Lang1,2,3
name.[first..last]	F#
name.slice(first, last)	JavaScript
array_slice(name, first, len)	PHP4
(subseq name first end)	Common Lisp
Array.sub name first len	OCaml
[name subarrayWithRange:NSMakeRange(first, len)]	Objective-C (NSArray * only)

1. Slices for multidimensional arrays are also supported and defined similarly.
2. Slices of the type first:last:step are also supported.
3. More generally, for 1-d arrays Perl and S-Lang permit slices of the form array[indices], where indices an be a range such mentioned in footnote 2 or an explicit list of indices, e.g., '[0,9,3,4]', as well as a combination of the two, e.g., A[[[0:3],7,9,[11:2:-3]]].
4. last or end may be a negative number, indicating to stop at the corresponding number of places before the end of the array.

Array system cross-reference list

Programming language	Default Base index	Specifiable Index Type16	Specifiable Base Index	Bound Check	Multidimensional	Dynamically-sized	Vectorized Operations
Ada	index type17	yes	yes	checked	yes	init1	some, others definable5
ALGOL 68	1	no25	yes	varies	yes	yes	user definable
APL	?	?	0 or 17	checked	yes	init1	yes
assembly language	0	?	no	unchecked	no	no	?
BASIC	0	?	no	checked	no	init1	?
C	0	no	no	unchecked	array of array2	init1,4, heap3	no
C++5	0	no	no	unchecked	array of array2	heap3	no
C#	0	no	no	checked	yes	heap3,9	yes (LINQ select)
COBOL	1	?	no	checked	yes	no14	?
Common Lisp	0	?	no	checked15	yes	yes	yes (mapcar)
D	0	?	no	varies11	yes	yes	?
F#	0	no	no	checked	yes	heap3,9	no
FreeBASIC	0	no	yes	checked	yes	init1,init21	?
Fortran	1	yes	yes	varies12	yes	init1, heap3	yes
FoxPro	1	?	no	checked	yes	yes	?
Haskell	none (specified on init)	yes24	yes	checked	yes, also array of array2	init1	?
IDL	0	?	no	checked	yes	yes	yes
Java5	0	no	no	checked	array of array2	init1	?
JavaScript	0	no	no	checked22	array of array2	yes	yes
Lua	1	?	partial20	checked	array of array2	yes	?
MATLAB	1	?	no	checked	yes8	yes	yes
Oberon	0	?	no	checked	yes	no	?
Oberon-2	0	?	no	checked	yes	yes	?
Objective-C5	0	no	no	checked	array of array2	yes	no
OCaml	0	no	no	checked by default	array of array2	init1	?
Pascal	index type17	yes	yes	varies13	yes	varies10	some
Perl	0	no	yes ($[)	checked22	array of array2	yes	no18
PHP	0	yes23	yes23	checked23	yes	yes	yes
PL/I	1	?	yes	checked	yes	no	?
Python	0	no	no	checked	array of array2	yes	no19
Ruby	0	no	no	checked22	array of array2	yes	?
S-Lang	0	?	no	checked	yes	yes	yes
Scheme	0	?	no	checked	array of array2	init1	?
Smalltalk5	1	?	no	checked	array of array2	yes6	?
Visual Basic	0	no	yes	checked	yes	yes	?
Visual Basic .NET	0	no	no	checked	yes	yes	yes (LINQ select)
Windows PowerShell	0	no	no	checked	yes	heap	?
Programming language	Default Base index	Specifiable Index Type16	Specifiable Base Index	Bound Check	Multidimensional	Dynamically-sized	Vectorized Operations

1. Size can only be chosen on initialization after which it is fixed.
2. Allows arrays of arrays which can be used to emulate most - but not all - aspects multi-dimensional arrays.
3. Size can only be chosen on initialization when memory is allocated on the heap, as distinguished from when it is allocated on the stack. This note need not be made for a language that always allocates arrays on the heap.
4. C99 allows for variable size arrays – however there is almost no compiler available to support this new feature.
5. This list is strictly comparing language features. In every language (even assembler) it is possible to provide improved array handling via add on libraries. This language has improved array handling as part of its standard library.
6. The class Array is fixed-size, but OrderedCollection is dynamic.
7. The indexing base can be 0 or 1, but is set for a whole "workspace".
8. At least 2 dimensions (scalar numbers are 1×1 arrays, vectors are 1×n or n×1 arrays).
9. Allows creation of fixed-size arrays in "unsafe" code, allowing for enhanced interoperability with other languages
10. Varies by implementation. Newer implementations (FreePascal and Delphi) permit heap-based dynamic arrays.
11. Behaviour can be tuned using compiler switches. As in DMD 1.0 bounds are checked in debug mode and unchecked in release mode for efficiency reasons.
12. Almost all Fortran implementations offer bounds checking options via compiler switches. However by default, bounds checking is usually turned off for efficiency reasons.
13. Many implementations (Turbo Pascal, Delphi, FreePascal) allow the behaviour to be changed by compiler switches and in-line directives.
14. COBOL provides a way to specify that the usable size of an array is variable, but this can never be greater than the declared maximum size, which is also the allocated size.
15. Most Common Lisp implementations allow checking to be selectively disabled.
16. The index type can be a freely chosen Integer type, Enumerated type, or Character type. For arrays with non-compact index types see: Associative array.
17. The default base index is the lowest value of the index type used.
18. Standard Perl array data types do not support vectorized operations as defined here. However, the PerlDL extension adds array objects with this capability.
19. The standard Python array type, list, does not support vectorized operations as defined here. However, the numpy extension adds array objects with this capability.
20. By specifying a base index, arrays at an arbitrary base can be created. However, by default, Lua's length operator does not consider the base index of the array when calculating the length. This behavior can be changed via metamethods.
21. FreeBASIC supports both variable array lengths and fixed length arrays. Arrays declared with no index range are created as variable-length arrays, while arrays with a declared range are created as fixed-length arrays.
22. In this language, you can access or write to an array index greater than or equal to the length of the array, and the array will implicitly grow to that size. This may appear at first as if the bounds are not checked; however, the bounds are checked in order to decide to grow the array, and you do not have unsafe memory access like you do in C.
23. PHP's "arrays" are associative arrays. You can use integers and strings as the keys (indexes); floats can also be used as the key but are truncated to integers. There is not really any "base index" or "bounds".
24. Haskell arrays (Data.Array) allow you to use any type which is an instance of Ix as index type. So you can define a custom type and use it as an index type as long as it instances Ix. Also, tuples of Ix types are also Ix types; this is commonly used to implement multi-dimensional arrays.
25. ALGOL 68 arrays must be subscripted (and sliced) by type INT. However a hash function could be used to convert other types to INT. eg. name[hash("string")]

Vectorized array operations

Some scripting languages such as IDL, MATLAB, and S-Lang have native support for vectorized operations on arrays. For example, to perform an element by element sum of two arrays, a and b to produce a third c, it is only necessary to write

    c = a + b

Since the implicit inner loops do not occur at the level of the interpreter, the speed of such vectorized operations can be as fast as compiled code. In addition to support for vectorized arithmetic and relational operations, these languages also vectorize common mathematical functions such as sine. For example, if x is an array, then

    y = sin (x)

will result in an array y whose elements are sine of the corresponding elements of the array x.

Vectorized index operations are also supported. As an example,

    even = x[[0::2]];
    odd = x[[1::2]];

is how one would use S-Lang create arrays from the even and odd elements of an array. Another common use of vectorized indices is a filtering operation. Consider a clipping operation of a sine wave where amplitudes larger than 0.5 are to be set to 0.5. Using S-Lang, this may accomplished by

    y = sin(x);
    y[where(abs(y)>0.5)] = 0.5;