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A boolean array contains only true or false values and is often implemented using bits. It was originally used to save memory, but as memory increased, bit arrays became less necessary. Boolean arrays are easy to read, but cannot be used with bitmasks.
A boolean array in computer programming is a sequence of values that can contain only the values of true or false. By definition, a boolean can only be true or false and cannot contain any other intermediate values. An array is a sequence of data types that occupy numeric positions in linear memory space. While the actual implementation of a Boolean array is often left to the compiler or computer language libraries, it is done most efficiently by using bits instead of full bytes or words. There are several uses for a boolean array, including keeping track of property flags and aligning settings for physical hardware interfaces.
The idea of a Boolean array comes from original methods used to store information on computers where available memory was very limited. The first implementation of a boolean array took the form of a bit array. This used larger data types such as bytes or long integers to hold information by setting the data type bits to true or false. In this way, a single eight-bit long byte could contain eight different true or false values, saving space and allowing for efficient bitwise operations.
As computer memory has increased in size, the need to use bit arrays has decreased. While using bits provides the ability to shift bits and use logical operators that allow for incredibly fast processing, it also requires custom code to handle these types of operations. Using a standard array structure to hold a sequence of bytes is a simpler solution, but requires much more memory during program execution. This can be seen when creating an array of 32 boolean values. With a bit array, the data will only take up four bytes of memory, but a boolean array could take up anywhere from 32 to 128 bytes, depending on the system implementation.
Some computer programming languages actually implement a bit array when a boolean array type is used, although this is not common. A boolean array has the advantage of being very easy to read when viewing the source code. Comparisons and assignments are presented clearly, while with a bit array the logical operators “and”, “or” and “not” must be used, creating potentially confusing code.
Despite its ease of use, one feature that cannot be used with a boolean array is a bitmask. A bitmask is a single-byte or larger data type that contains a sequence of true and false values for multiple conditions. In a single operation, multiple bits can be checked for their true or false state, all at once. With an integer-based array of Boolean values, the same thing should be done with a loop.
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