In computer programming, array slicing is an operation that extracts certain elements from an array and packages them as another array, possibly with different number of indices (or dimensions) and different index ranges. Two common examples are extracting a substring from a string of characters (e.g. "ell" from "hello"), and extracting a row (or a column) of a rectangular matrix to be used as a vector.
Depending on the programming language and context, the elements of the new array may be aliased to (i.e., share memory with) those of the original array.
Famous quotes containing the word array:
“Any one who knows what the worth of family affection is among the lower classes, and who has seen the array of little portraits stuck over a labourer’s fireplace ... will perhaps feel with me that in counteracting the tendencies, social and industrial, which every day are sapping the healthier family affections, the sixpenny photograph is doing more for the poor than all the philanthropists in the world.”
—Macmillan’s Magazine (London, September 1871)