Working with Arrays and Records in Ada: Managing Complex Data Structures

July 5, 2024

Dive into managing complex data structures in Ada using arrays and records. Understand how to declare, initialize, and manipulate arrays and records to handle structured data effectively.

Arrays in Ada

Arrays in Ada are collections of elements of the same type that are stored in contiguous memory locations. They provide a convenient way to store and access multiple values of the same data type.

To declare an array in Ada, you specify the type of elements it will hold and the range of indices:

type Int_Array is array(1..5) of Integer;

You can initialize an array in Ada using an array aggregate:

My_Array: Int_Array := (1, 2, 3, 4, 5);

Accessing elements of an array is done using indexing:

My_Array(3); // Accesses the element at index 3

Records in Ada

Records in Ada are composite data types that can hold elements of different data types. They allow you to group related data together in a structured format.

To declare a record in Ada, you specify the components it will contain:

type Person_Record is record
    Name : String(1..50);
    Age : Integer;
end record;

You can initialize a record in Ada using record aggregates:

My_Record: Person_Record := (Name => 'Alice', Age => 30);

Accessing fields of a record is done using dot notation:

My_Record.Name; // Accesses the 'Name' field of the record
My_Record.Age; // Accesses the 'Age' field of the record

Arrays and records can be combined to create complex data structures in Ada, providing a powerful way to manage and manipulate structured data in your programs.