Which comes first in a 2D array, rows or columns?

java multidimensional-array
Matt B picture Matt B · Jul 25, 2012 · Viewed 158k times · Source

When creating a 2D array, how does one remember whether rows or columns are specified first?

Answer

MrHappyAsthma picture MrHappyAsthma · Jul 25, 2012

Java is considered "row major", meaning that it does rows first. This is because a 2D array is an "array of arrays".

For example: 

int[ ][ ] a = new int[2][4];  // Two rows and four columns.

a[0][0] a[0][1] a[0][2] a[0][3]

a[1][0] a[1][1] a[1][2] a[1][3]

It can also be visualized more like this:

a[0] ->  [0] [1] [2] [3]
a[1] ->  [0] [1] [2] [3]

The second illustration shows the "array of arrays" aspect. The first array contains {a[0] and a[1]}, and each of those is an array containing four elements, {[0][1][2][3]}.

TL;DR summary:

Array[number of arrays][how many elements in each of those arrays]

For more explanations, see also Arrays - 2-dimensional.

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