Inside Delphi 2006 (Wordware Delphi Developers Library)

In Delphi, there are two ways of declaring multidimensional arrays:

ArrayName: array[Range_1, Range_2] of DataType; ArrayName: array[Range_1] of array[Range_2] of DataType;

Just as one-dimensional arrays make it easier to work with large numbers of variables, multidimensional arrays help us when we have to work with a large number of one-dimensional arrays. For instance, we can use a very simple two-dimensional array to hold the multiplication table and then read appropriate values when we have to.

Listing 6-6: A simple two-dimensional array

program Project1; {$APPTYPE CONSOLE} uses SysUtils; var MultTable: array[1..10, 1..10] of Integer; i, j: Integer; begin for i := 1 to 10 do begin for j := 1 to 10 do begin MultTable[i, j] := i * j; Write(MultTable[i][j]:4); end; WriteLn; end; ReadLn; end.

The example in Listing 6-6 illustrates both ways of accessing a value in a multidimensional array:

ArrayName[index_1, index_2] ArrayName[index_1][index_2]