How is the address of a 1-dimensional array element computed?

addr(name[i]) = name + i * sizeof(element) — start address plus index times element size.

* 1-D array: contiguous cells, addr(A[i]) = A + i * sizeof(element). *

An array is just a contiguous block of equally-sized elements, so finding element i is pure arithmetic — there's no metadata, no bounds info stored anywhere. For T name[N]:

• One element: s_T = sizeof(T)
• Whole array: s_A = N * s_T
• Element i: addr_i = name + i * s_T

Memory layout:

name[0]   name[1]   name[2]   ...   name[N-1]
x         x+s_T     x+2*s_T         x+(N-1)*s_T

Example: int A[100] based at 0x1000 (so s_T = 4):

• A[5] is at 0x1000 + 5*4 = 0x1014.

In assembly this becomes a scaled-index memory operand, e.g. movl A(,%rdi,4), %eax reads A[i] with %rdi = i and scale 4.

Alignment: the array's alignment equals the alignment of its element type T — there's no extra requirement just because it's an array.

Go deeper:

• Array data structure (Wikipedia) — the array data structure and index-to-address formula.
• Addressing mode (Wikipedia) — the scaled-index addressing mode used to reach an element.