Problems with understanding a function

hi

I was reading a function in the stdio header file...but there is something that I don't understand:
this is the function description:

int fread (void * buffer, size_t size, size_t count, FILE * stream);

what do we mean by void* ? does this mean that it can be a pointer of any type?
and what is size_t ? why didn't they simple write int or long?

thanks

this void * buffer is a pointer to parameter buffer.
The function fread reads nmemb elements of data, each size bytes long, from the stream pointed to by stream, storing them at the location given by ptr.

wait to have help you!

yes but what I don't understand is the type of the pointer to buffer. I mean is it of type char*? int*? long*? it can be any array? does "void* " mean I can pass any type of pointer?

void pointers are generic pointers , you use them to point to any type of data.