Thread: Size of a struct

  1. #1
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    Size of a struct

    Can you help me why this code gives 40 value of as the size of the struct
    Code:
    #include <stdio.h>
    
    
    struct clientData {
        unsigned int acctNum; // account number
        char lastName[15]; // account last name
        char firstName[10]; // account first name
        double balance; // account balance
    };
    
    
    int main () {
    	printf("%d", sizeof(struct clientData));
    }

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hetfield View Post
    Can you help me why this code gives 40 value of as the size of the struct
    Code:
    #include <stdio.h>
    
    
    struct clientData {
        unsigned int acctNum; // account number
        char lastName[15]; // account last name
        char firstName[10]; // account first name
        double balance; // account balance
    };
    
    
    int main () {
        printf("%d", sizeof(struct clientData));
    }

    structs are padded for alignment purposes. acctNum will be 4 bytes, lastName 16 (1 pad), firstname 12(2 pad) and balance 8 bytes.
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  3. #3
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    Everything get padded to the nearest 4 bytes, depending on compiler alignment options and active "#pragma" directives. It might be like this:

    Code:
      struct clientData {
      unsigned int acctNum; // account number    4 bytes   no padding
      char lastName[15]; // account last name   15 bytes.  padded to 16
      char firstName[10]; // account first name  10 bytes, padded to 12
      double balance; // account balance          8 bytes, no padding
    };

  4. #4
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    There's no reason to pad lastname to 16 since firstName, a char array, can start on any byte.
    It's more likely that firstName is padded to 13 so that balance is on an 8-byte boundary.
    A little inaccuracy saves tons of explanation. - H.H. Munro

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by john.c View Post
    There's no reason to pad lastname to 16 since firstName, a char array, can start on any byte.
    It's more likely that firstName is padded to 13 so that balance is on an 8-byte boundary.
    Yes, I can confirm that is of course true...

    Code:
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <stddef.h>
    
    
    struct clientData {
      unsigned int acctNum; // account number    4 bytes   no padding
      char lastName[15]; // account last name   15 bytes.  padded to 16
      char firstName[10]; // account first name  10 bytes, padded to 12
      double balance; // account balance          8 bytes, no padding
    };
    
    
    int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
       printf("acctNum   %zi\n", offsetof(struct clientData, acctNum));
       printf("lastName  %zi\n", offsetof(struct clientData, lastName));
       printf("firstName %zi\n", offsetof(struct clientData, firstName));
       printf("balance   %zi\n", offsetof(struct clientData, balance));
       return 0;
    }
    So here are the offsets in bytes from the start of the structure....

    Code:
    $ ./pad
    acctNum   0
    lastName  4
    firstName 19
    balance   32

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