Thread: size_t

Hello,

Here comes one of those questions that I am always afraid of asking... I have the feeling it is quite a simple one and it almost feels ridiculous, heh. Well ...

In a prototype declaration, like this one ...

Code:

ssize_t read(int fd, void *buf, size_t count);

where do the the types ssize_t and size_t come from? Are they declared in a library with the enum construct? Why not just declared as int ?

Well, that was it.

Thanks in advance !

It is defined in the stddef.h header. It's an unsigned integer value. That's basically all I know. Maybe this is a start?

size_t is an unsigned integer type (typedef'd in stddef.h). It's the result type of the sizeof operator, which can be different on different machines. So by using size_t instead of e.g. unsigned int you can write platform independent code. ssize_t is a different thing; it's not in the standard.