Editing Stride of an array (section)

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In [[computer programming]], the '''stride of an array''' (also referred to as '''increment''', '''pitch''' or '''step size''') is the number of locations in [[computer memory|memory]] between beginnings of successive [[Array data structure|array]] elements, measured in [[byte]]s or in units of the size of the array's elements. The stride cannot be smaller than the element size but can be larger, indicating extra space between elements.

An array with stride of exactly the same size as the size of each of its elements is contiguous in memory. Such arrays are sometimes said to have '''unit stride'''. Unit stride arrays are sometimes more efficient than non-unit stride arrays, but non-unit stride arrays can be more efficient for [[2D array|2D]] or [[multi-dimensional array]]s, depending on the effects of [[CPU cache|caching]] and the [[memory access pattern|access pattern]]s used.{{citation needed|date=January 2018}} This can be attributed to the [[Locality of reference|principle of locality]], specifically ''spatial locality''.