An Array{Bool}
stores each true/false
value as a Bool
, which is represented internally as a UInt8
. So if your array has N
elements, it will take N
bytes to store it.
A BitArray
stores each true/false
value as a single bit, with (conceptually) 8 of them packed into a single UInt8
. Consequently, it takes only N/8
bytes to store the array. A BitArray
also has methods defined that handle all the required bit-twiddling operations for you.
Depending on the operation, BitArray
s are sometimes slower than the corresponding Array{Bool}
, and sometimes faster. But by and large the performance differences are quite small, so it makes sense to use BitArray
s unless you have a specific reason not to. But overall they are fairly interchangeable.
Note that both are subtypes of AbstractArray{Bool}
:
julia> BitArray <: AbstractArray{Bool}
true
julia> Array{Bool} <: AbstractArray{Bool}
true
This makes it easy to write generic methods that take either one.