Find Minimum Element in Array in C Language

Find Minimum element in Array in C Program Description:

Write a Program to Find Minimum element in Array in C programming language. The program should accept the user input, update the array, and calculate the minimum element in the array.

Example Input and Output:

Input:

Output:

Minimum element in array is : 2

Prerequisites:

It is recommended to know the basics of the Arrays in C and functions in c. We have already covered the array and functions in our earlier posts, Please check them.

• Arrays in C with example programs
• Functions in C – how to declare, define, and call functions.
• Passing Arrays to functions in C

Find Minimum element in Array in C Program Explanation:

1. Start the program by declaring an integer array named data. The data array holds 5 elements ( size of the array) and also declare a variable i to traverse the array.
2. Take the input from the user and update the array. Use a For Loop to iterate over the array and take the input from the user using standard input and output functions ( printf and scanf)
3. Create a variable called min. Initialize the min with INT_MAX. The value of the INT_MAX is 2147483647. Learn more about the INT_MAX at Size and Limits of datatypes
4. To find the minimum element we need to traverse the array and update the min if any element is smaller than the min. data[i] < min
5. Once the above loop is completed the variable min contain the minimum element in the array.
6. Display the results on the console.

The minimum element in Array in C Program Algorithm:

1. Declare array int data[5]; and int i
2. Prompt the user to input the values for the array
3. FOR  i&nbsp;=&nbsp;0 to  SIZE-1 ( Loop )
   • Read the value for  data[i]
4. Initialize min – min = INT_MAX;
5. FOR  i&nbsp;=&nbsp;0 to  SIZE-1 ( Loop )
   • update min( min = data[i]) if the data[i] < min is true
6. Print the min value on the console

Program to Find Minimum element in Array in C:

Let’s convert the above algorithm to code.

Program Output:

Compile and Run the program using GCC (any compiler)

With negative numbers

Find Minimum element in Array in C using Functions:

In the above program, we have used only the main() function. So let’s divide the above program into the functions So that we can re-use the code.

We have defined two functions here

• read() function – The read() function is used to read the elements of the array.
  • Prototype of read function
  • void read(int *data, int size);
• minimum function – The minimum function finds the minimum element in the array and returns it.
  • Prototype of minimum function
  • int minimum(int data[], int size);

Program Output:

Now, Let’s compile and run the program and observe the output

As we can see from the above output, We are getting the desired results.

Related Array Programs:

• C Program to Read and Print Arrays
• Reverse Print Array Program in C
• C Program to calculate Sum of all array Elements
• C Program to Calculate the Average of all array Elements

Related Functions and Recursion Programs:

1. C Program to Perform Arithmetic Operations using functions
2. Add Two Numbers using Functions in C
3. C Program to calculate Fibonacci Series using function
4. C Program to find Factorial of a Number using functions
5. C Program to find Minimum and Maximum numbers using Functions
6. Armstrong Number using Function in C language
7. Prime number program using Function
8. Program to Caclulate Area of Circle using Function
9. Program to Check Even or Odd number using Function
10. Binary to Decimal Conversion using function in C