Which comes first in a 2D array, rows or columns?

Question

When creating a 2D array, how does one remember whether rows or columns are specified first?

Answer 1

Instinctively one thinks geometrically: horizontal (X) axis and then vertical (Y) axis. This is not, however, the case with a 2D array, rows come first and then columns.

Consider the following analogy: in geometry one walks to the ladder (X axis) and climbs it (Y axis). Conversely, in Java one descends the ladder (rows) and walks away (columns).

Answer 2

In java the rows are done first, because a 2 dimension array is considered two separate arrays. Starts with the first row 1 dimension array.

Answer 3

Java is considered "row major", meaning that it does rows first. This is because a 2D array is an "array of arrays".

For example:

int[ ][ ] a = new int[2][4];  // Two rows and four columns.

a[0][0] a[0][1] a[0][2] a[0][3]

a[1][0] a[1][1] a[1][2] a[1][3]

It can also be visualized more like this:

a[0] ->  [0] [1] [2] [3]
a[1] ->  [0] [1] [2] [3]

The second illustration shows the "array of arrays" aspect. The first array contains {a[0] and a[1]}, and each of those is an array containing four elements, {[0][1][2][3]}.

TL;DR summary:

Array[number of arrays][how many elements in each of those arrays]

For more explanations, see also Arrays - 2-dimensional.