What happens when your program attempts to access an array element with aninvalid index?

When your program attempts to access an array element with an invalid index, it will throw an exception or error. This is because arrays are zero-indexed, meaning they start counting at 0, and the maximum index number is one less than the size of the array.

Here are the steps that occur:

1. The program attempts to access an element at an index that does not exist within the array's bounds.
2. The system recognizes this as an invalid operation because the index is either negative or greater than or equal to the size of the array.
3. The system throws an exception or error. The type of this error depends on the programming language, but it is often an "Index Out of Bounds" or "Array Index Out of Range" exception.
4. Depending on how your program is set up to handle exceptions, it may halt execution at this point, or it may catch the exception and handle it in a specified way.

In summary, accessing an array element with an invalid index is a common programming error that results in an exception being thrown.