Difference Between Array and Variable

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In Programming, most of the beginners get confused between the Variable and an Array. Some thought Variable and Array are same, and some know they both are different, but they don’t know the difference. To understand the difference between variable and an arrays, let me briefly tell you what are variables and arrays.

What are Variables

In Programming, a variable is a named container that stores a value. A value can be of any type like, numbers, text strings etc. In most of the cases we can update a variable name, with a new value.

Depending upon the programming language there are different values to declare a variable. Like in Python, we can declare a variable x and give it a value 1 as x = 1. In JavaScript we can declare a variable x and give it a value 1as var x = 1 or let x = 1 or const x = 1. _{Learn more} _about JavaScript var, let and const.

What is an Array

In Programming, an Array is a type of Variable or you can say an array is a Data Structure that can store multiple values. Arrays can hold a group of related values, like group of numbers, or text-strings. Arrays helps us to easily access and manipulate multiple values at once. It also helps us to make our code shorter and more readable, as we don’t have to create separate variable for each value.

Difference Between Array and Variable

A Variable is a used to store values that can be changed during program execution. On the other hand, an Array is a data structure that allows us to store a collection of similar data values under one variable name. Also a variable can hold only one value at a time, while an array can hold multiple values of the same data type.

Here in an example below we will write a JavaScript code to clearly understand the difference.

Example

// example of a variable 
let x = 5;
// example of an array
let x = [5, 4, 3, 2, 1];

In an example above you have seen that Variable x only holds one value at a time (5). While as Array x holds 5 values at a time.

In nutshell, you should use Arrays when you are working with large sets of data that need to be processed or manipulated as a group. While as if you are storing and manipulating individual values or smaller sets you should use Variables.

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Difference Between Array and Variable