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The C programming language manages memory statically, automatically, or dynamically.Static-duration variables are allocated in main memory, usually along with the executable code of the program, and persist for the lifetime of the program; automatic-duration variables are allocated on the stack and come and go as functions are called and return.
A simple dynamic array can be constructed by allocating an array of fixed-size, typically larger than the number of elements immediately required. The elements of the dynamic array are stored contiguously at the start of the underlying array, and the remaining positions towards the end of the underlying array are reserved, or unused.
Static arrays have a size that is fixed when they are created and consequently do not allow elements to be inserted or removed. However, by allocating a new array and copying the contents of the old array to it, it is possible to effectively implement a dynamic version of an array; see dynamic array. If this operation is done infrequently ...
(See the article on C dynamic memory allocation for an example of dynamically allocated arrays.) Unlike automatic allocation, which can fail at run time with uncontrolled consequences, the dynamic allocation functions return an indication (in the form of a null pointer value) when the required storage cannot be allocated.
C99 introduced support for VLAs, although they were subsequently relegated in C11 to a conditional feature, which implementations are not required to support; [2] [3] on some platforms, VLAs could be implemented formerly with alloca() or similar functions. Growable arrays (also called dynamic arrays) are generally more useful than VLAs because ...
A dynamic array is a data structure that allocates all elements contiguously in memory, and keeps a count of the current number of elements. If the space reserved for the dynamic array is exceeded, it is reallocated and (possibly) copied, which is an expensive operation. Linked lists have several advantages over dynamic arrays.
The dynamic array approach uses a variant of a dynamic array that can grow from both ends, sometimes called array deques. These array deques have all the properties of a dynamic array, such as constant-time random access , good locality of reference , and inefficient insertion/removal in the middle, with the addition of amortized constant-time ...
Allocating a new internal array A and copying all of the values from the old internal array to the new one takes O(n) actual time, but (with an appropriate choice of the constant of proportionality C) this is entirely cancelled by the decrease in the potential function, leaving again a constant total amortized time for the operation.