Find Largest Element in an Array in C

In this example, you will learn to display the largest element entered by the user in an array.

To understand this example, you should have the knowledge of the following C programming topics:

• C for Loop
• C Arrays

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Find the Largest Element in an array

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
    int i, n;
    float arr[100];
    printf("Enter the number of elements (1 to 100): ");
    scanf("%d", &n);

    for (i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
        printf("Enter number%d: ", i + 1);
        scanf("%f", &arr[i]);
    }

    // storing the largest number to arr[0]
    for (i = 1; i < n; ++i) {
        if (arr[0] < arr[i])
            arr[0] = arr[i];
    }

    printf("Largest element = %.2f", arr[0]);
Find the Largest Element in an array
    return 0;
}

Output

Enter the number of elements (1 to 100): 5
Enter number1: 34.5
Enter number2: 2.4
Enter number3: -35.5
Enter number4: 38.7
Enter number5: 24.5
Largest element = 38.70

This program takes n number of elements from the user and stores it in arr[].

To find the largest element,

• the first two elements of array are checked and the largest of these two elements are placed in arr[0]
• the first and third elements are checked and largest of these two elements is placed in arr[0].
• this process continues until the first and last elements are checked
• the largest number will be stored in the arr[0] position

We have used a for loop to accomplish this task.

for (i = 1; i < n; ++i) {
    if (arr[0] < arr[i])
        arr[0] = arr[i];
}