What is an array in C?

An array in C is fundamentally a collection of variables that are all of the same type, which means they share a data type such as int, float, char, etc. This characteristic allows arrays to store a fixed number of elements that can be accessed by their index position, facilitating efficient data organization and manipulation.

For example, if you declare an integer array, you can hold multiple integer values in a contiguous block of memory, making it easy to iterate through those values, perform calculations, or apply algorithms. This uniformity in data type helps in memory management and type safety within C programming.

The other choices present different concepts that do not accurately describe an array. A variable that can hold any data type primarily refers to a union or a variant type, which does not enforce uniformity in the type of data. A method for sorting data alludes to algorithms or functions like quicksort or bubblesort that can operate on data structures, but does not define what an array is. A type of pointer referencing multiple data types suggests something like a void pointer or a generic pointer in C, which is again not specific to the definition of arrays.