Arrays vs Other Data Structures When to Choose Arrays in DSA C - Build Both Approaches

Arrays vs Other Data Structures: When to Choose Arrays

📖 Scenario: You are working on a simple inventory system for a small bookstore. You need to store the prices of books in a way that allows quick access by position because the store owner often asks for the price of a book by its shelf number.

🎯 Goal: Build a program that uses an array to store book prices, then calculates how many books are priced below a certain threshold. This will help the store owner quickly find affordable books.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an array called book_prices with exactly these 5 prices: 120, 85, 150, 60, 90

Create an integer variable called price_limit and set it to 100

Use a for loop with variable i to count how many books have prices less than price_limit

Print the count of affordable books using printf

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Arrays are used in many real-world applications where you need to store a fixed number of items and access them quickly by their position, like storing prices, scores, or sensor readings.

💼 Career

Understanding arrays is fundamental for programming jobs because they are the building blocks for more complex data structures and algorithms.

1

Create the array of book prices

Create an integer array called book_prices with these exact values: 120, 85, 150, 60, 90

DSA C

// Your code here

Hint

Use the syntax int array_name[size] = {values}; to create the array.

2

Set the price limit

Create an integer variable called price_limit and set it to 100

DSA C

int book_prices[5] = {120, 85, 150, 60, 90};
// Your code here

Hint

Use int price_limit = 100; to create the variable.

3

Count books priced below the limit

Create an integer variable called count and set it to 0. Then use a for loop with variable i from 0 to 4 to check each price in book_prices. Inside the loop, if book_prices[i] is less than price_limit, increase count by 1.

DSA C

int book_prices[5] = {120, 85, 150, 60, 90};
int price_limit = 100;
// Your code here

Hint

Initialize count to zero before the loop. Use for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) to loop through the array.

4

Print the count of affordable books

Use printf to print the value of count with the message: "Number of affordable books: %d\n"

DSA C

int book_prices[5] = {120, 85, 150, 60, 90};
int price_limit = 100;
int count = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    if (book_prices[i] < price_limit) {
        count++;
    }
}
// Your code here

Hint

Use printf("Number of affordable books: %d\n", count); to print the result.