C Exercises: Find the second largest element in an array

Last update on March 18 2025 13:21:35 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

16. Second Largest Element

Write a program in C to find the second largest element in an array.

The task is to write a C program that finds the second largest element in an array. The program should prompt the user for the array size and elements, then calculate and display the second largest element in the array.

Visual Presentation:

C Exercises: Find the second largest element in an array

Sample Solution:

C Code:

#include <stdio.h>

void main() {
    int arr1[50], n, i, j = 0, lrg, lrg2nd;

    // Prompt user for input
    printf("\n\nFind the second largest element in an array :\n");
    printf("-------------------------------------------------\n");
    printf("Input the size of the array : ");
    scanf("%d", &n);

    // Input values for the array
    printf("Input %d elements in the array :\n", n);
    for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
        printf("element - %d : ", i);
        scanf("%d", &arr1[i]);
    }

    // Find the location of the largest element in the array
    lrg = 0;
    for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
        if (lrg < arr1[i]) {
            lrg = arr1[i];
            j = i;
        }
    }

    // Ignore the largest element and find the second largest element in the array
    lrg2nd = 0;
    for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
        if (i == j) {
            i++;  // Ignore the largest element
            i--;
        } else {
            if (lrg2nd < arr1[i]) {
                lrg2nd = arr1[i];
            }
        }
    }

    // Display the second largest element
    printf("The Second largest element in the array is :  %d \n\n", lrg2nd);
}

Sample Output:

Find the second largest element in an array :                                                                 
-------------------------------------------------                                                             
Input the size of array : 5                                                                                   
Input 5 elements in the array :                                                                               
element - 0 : 2                                                                                               
element - 1 : 9                                                                                               
element - 2 : 1                                                                                               
element - 3 : 4                                                                                               
element - 4 : 6                                                                                               
The Second largest element in the array is : 6

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

Write a C program to find the second largest element in an array without sorting the array.
Write a C program to find the second largest element using a single pass through the array.
Write a C program to determine the second largest element and then swap it with the largest element.
Write a C program to find the second largest element using recursion.

C Programming Code Editor:

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