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Software Engineering vocabulary · Data Structures and Algorithms

Index

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˈɪndeks/nounCore term

In software engineering, index means: The position number of an item in an array or list. In most languages counting starts at zero, so the first item has index 0.

In Turkish: indeks, indis, sıra numarası

How it is used

You access an element 'at index 3' or 'by index'. Common errors are 'index out of range' and 'index out of bounds'. The plural is indexes or, more formally, indices. In databases, an index is something else: a structure that makes searches faster.

Example sentences

  1. The loop starts at index 1, so it skips the first element.

  2. The app crashed with an 'index out of range' error when the list was empty.

Common collocations

  • at index
  • index out of range
  • zero-based index
  • access by index
  • arrayAn ordered collection of items stored one after another, where each item can be reached by its position number, called an index.
  • loopA piece of code that repeats the same steps several times, for example once for every item in a list or until a condition becomes false.
  • off-by-one errorA common bug where a loop or calculation goes one step too far or stops one step too early, often because counting starts at zero.
  • iterateTo go through the items of a collection one by one, or more generally to repeat a process and improve the result each time.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Data Structures and Algorithms

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