ArrayList’s in Java are complex data structures based on object oriented programming, while arrays in C programming language are simply indexed chains of allocated memory of certain lengths.
The only way to access an element in C programming language array is to give it’s index, which is used to compute the address of variable in this array you wish to access.
example:
If character[11] is an array of char, each char variable takes 1 byte, you wish to access 5th element of array characters, the address of this element will be compute like that: 5*1+(address of the first element).
If you wish to use more complex data structures in C programming language you will have to implement it. Here is a good place to start:
Arraylist in C not working
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solved C expandable array [closed]