I’ve written many C programming Lessons and Exercises that deal with matrixes. For most of them, such as rotating a matrix<\/a>, I rely on uniform matrix sizes, like 5×5 or 10×10. This approach makes coding easier, but it doesn’t properly describe every type of matrix. Manipulating such an array involves brainwork, but things get dicey when passing these matrixes to a function. In my code, I often use a pointer as an argument. It’s easier to pass but still involves overhead when calculating row and column offsets.<\/p>\n A larger problem is how to inform a function of a matrix’s dimensions. Other programming languages may offer a method to obtain row and column values in a matrix — but in C you must come up with another way to describe this complex data, which is the topic of this month’s Exercise.<\/p>\n Your task is to output these two matrixes:<\/p>\n Each matrix is declared in the main()<\/em> function, but as a single-dimension array. What’s desired is a matrix as shown in the format: 4×3 and 2×2. These dimensions are how the matrixes should be treated, which is important.<\/p>\n In your solution you must code a function to output the matrixes as a grid. The matrix must be passed to the function as a single argument, a complex data type that describes the matrix’s dimensions and values.<\/p>\n Here is output from my solution:<\/p>\n I use two arguments for my version of output()<\/em> function. The first contains the title string, such as “Matrix A” above. The second argument is the complex data type that describes the array, its contents and dimensions.<\/p>\n Please try this exercise on your own before checking out my solution<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Devise a way to describe a matrix, specifically one with non-uniform dimensions. Continue reading
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\nA matrix, or grid, contains rows and columns of data. Depending on what’s being described, the rows and columns can be different: 2×4, 8×16, 18×5. These are all valid matrix sizes, often expressed in C as a two-dimensional array:<\/p>\nalpha[2][4]
\nbeta[8][16]
\ngamma[18][5]<\/code><\/p>\nint matrix_a[12] = {
\n 10, 20, 30, 40,
\n 11, 21, 31, 41,
\n 12, 22, 32, 42
\n};
\nint matrix_b[4] = {
\n 1, 2,
\n 3, 4
\n};<\/code><\/p>\nMatrix A
\n 10 20 30 40
\n 11 21 31 41
\n 12 22 32 42
\nMatrix B
\n 1 2
\n 3 4 <\/code><\/p>\n