Question

An array can only hold one data type; how might a programmer work around this limitation? For example, a programmer needs to store the names of a set of employees (String data) and their hourly pay scales (double data). How might the programmer do this using arrays?

Initial Post: Describe a situation where a programmer might need to store data of this sort and explain how arrays can be used to do this effectively.

Answer 1

To store multiple data types like strings and doubles, a programmer can use an array of objects in a class with fields for each data type. This allows efficient storage while maintaining the benefits of arrays.

Step-by-step explanation:

When a programmer needs to store multiple data types in an array such as strings and doubles, one workaround is to use an array of objects. In certain programming languages like Java, a class can be defined which holds multiple types of data.

For example, a class Employee can be created with two fields: a String to store the employee's name and a double to store their hourly pay scale. An array of Employee objects can then be created, where each element of the array stores both a name and a pay scale.

A real-world situation requiring this setup could be a payroll system where the programmer needs to keep track of all employees and their corresponding hourly wages.

In this case, creating a custom object which contains both the name (String) and hourly pay scale (double) allows efficient storage and processing of this mixed-type data. This approach preserves type safety and the benefits of arrays, like indexed ordering and easy iteration.