C Program to find largest and smallest element in array

In this blog post, we learn how to write a C program to find the largest and smallest element in the array? So here we will write the C program to find the smallest and largest element in an unsorted array. We will also see how to display the largest and smallest elements in an array using C programming.

Example,

Input: int arr[] = {3, 18, 10, 4, 2, 22, 150};

Output: Min = 2 , Max = 150

Logic to find the largest and smallest element in the array

So let’s see the logic to find the largest and smallest element in the array. Suppose arr is an integer array of size N (arr[N] ), the task is to write the C program to find largest and smallest element in the array.

1. Create two intermediate variables small and large.

2. Initialize the small and large variable with arr[0].

3. Now traverse the array iteratively and keep track of the smallest and largest element until the end of the array. 

4. In the last you will get the smallest and largest number in the variable small and large respectively. 

5. print both variables using the printf a library function.

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C Program to find largest and smallest element in array 

#include <stdio.h>

//Calculate array size
#define ARRAY_SIZE(a)  sizeof(a)/sizeof(a[0])


int main()
{
    int arr[] = {3, 18, 10, 4, 2, 22, 150};
    int i, small, large;
    const int N = ARRAY_SIZE(arr);

    small = arr[0];//Assume first element is smallest
    large = arr[0];//Assume first element is largest

    //iterate through the array
    for (i = 1; i < N; i++)
    {
        if (arr[i] < small)
        {
            small = arr[i];
        }

        if (arr[i] > large)
        {
            large = arr[i];
        }
    }

    printf("Largest element is : %d\n", large);
    printf("Smallest element is : %d\n", small);

    return 0;
}
FInd largest and smallest number in array C

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