CODEWITHSUNDEEP
arraysfor-looppseudocode
MeCAHK11
MeCAHK11

Reputation: 3

What is the output of this array pseudocode and why?

I am a new student in a programming fundamentals course. I have absolutely no previous experience with programming. I am trying to understand a question that was posed on a recent quiz about arrays. This is it: What will be the output of the pseudocode below?

nums = [30, 10, 20, 50, 40]
val = 0

For i = 0 to 5
    val = nums[i] + val

Display val

Thanks for any thoughts on this. I don't understand it at all. I originally thought 40 was the answer but sadly, that was wrong lol. Can someone tell me what the answer is and explain why that's so? Our textbook doesn't have any examples like this.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 984

Answers (2)

Wayne Conrad
Wayne Conrad

Reputation: 107989

As posed, the correct answer is "This code generates an error/exception." The reason is that the loop is iterating over six array elements, but the array contains only five. Here are just some of the things that various real languages might do in this case:

  • Generate an incorrect result.
  • Abort the program with a memory error (accessing memory out of bounds).
  • Generate an exception due to an invalid array index.
  • Generate an exception due to adding nil/null to an integer.

But the one thing you can be sure of is that the program is incorrect.

Upvotes: 1

bluejambo
bluejambo

Reputation: 221

Well, as Wayne already said, the for loops is running on to many times, which would result in an exception. Assuming that is a mistake and that the loop only runs 5 times. Then your result would be 30 + 10 + 20 + 50 + 40, as it just adds all values of the array up and saves it in val. So it would probably display 150, unless I am completely wrong and I also misunderstood it.

Upvotes: 1

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