Overview

In this tutorial, we will learn Arrays in Flowgorithm flowchart. The main advantage of an Array is flexibility and ease of storing elements of the same type.

What is an Array?

An Array is a data structure that holds elements of the same data type in contiguous memory locations. We can store and access the array elements using the index or subscript.

For example, to store 5 elements we can declare one array variable of size 5. Without using arrays, we need to declare 5 different variables to store the elements. It is quite difficult for the programmer to remember and use variables as the number of elements increases.

Array Types in Flowgorithm

https://www.testingdocs.com/flowgorithm-array-types/

Array Example

In this example, we use the fruits array variable. fruits is an array variable that stores different fruit names. The size of the array variable is 5.

Fruits Array Variable TestingDocs.com

Note that the array stores the names of the fruit names and not the fruit objects. The data type of the array elements is String.

For example: fruits[i]

In Flowgorithm, the i variable is called the subscript variable.

Array index or subscript

We need to store and retrieve individual array elements using the array index. In the Flowgorithm flowchart, the index starts with 0. So, to access the 3rd element we can use 2 as the index.

The fifth fruit name is stored in array index 4. For example,

fruits[4] = “Grapes”

For an Array of size 5, the valid range of the subscript is from 0 to 4. In general for an array of size n, the valid range of subscript range is from o to n-1.

Under any circumstances, if we try to allot values to an array subscript that is outside the valid range, we would get an error Bad Subscript. In Java programming language, we call this exception as ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException.

Declare Array variable

We can declare array variables with the Declare statement. Give a variable a name and check the checkbox Array? to make it an array variable.

Specify the array elements data type in the Type: drop-down.

Specify the array size in the Array Size: textbox.

The Declare symbol would look like this:

Declare Array Flowgorithm

String Array fruits[5]

Let’s create a sample flowchart to declare the array variable and store the elements in the array.

Array Example Flowgorithm

We have hard-coded the array values using the Assign statements. Every time the flowchart runs the array elements do not change and are fixed. In the next article, we will see how to populate the array using a loop statement and take input from the user.