You can think of a two-dimensional array as a grid of rows and columns.
An example of this type of array is a chess board - a grid of 8 rows and 8 columns.
A two-dimensional array is declared as follows:
int chess[8][8];
The two square brackets define two different dimensions of the chess array: 8 rows and 8 columns.
The square located at the first row and column would be referenced as chess[0][0].
The last square on that row would be chess[0][7], and the last square on the board would be chess[7][7].
The following code creates a simple tic-tac-toe board using a two-dimensional matrix: 3-by-3.
#include <stdio.h> int main() // w ww . j av a2 s .c o m { char tictactoe[3][3]; int x,y; /* initialize matrix */ for(x=0;x<3;x++) for(y=0;y<3;y++) tictactoe[x][y]='.'; tictactoe[1][1] = 'X'; /* display game board */ puts("Ready to play Tic-Tac-Toe?"); for(x=0;x<3;x++) { for(y=0;y<3;y++) printf("%c\t",tictactoe[x][y]); putchar('\n'); } return(0); }