CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ctypes32bit-64bit
pxl
pxl

Reputation: 1297

What Is the difference between how the char datatype is stored or represented in 32bit vs 64bit in C?

What Is the difference between how the char datatype is stored or represented in 32bit vs 64bit in C?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 385

Answers (2)

Martin Beckett
Martin Beckett

Reputation: 96109

One possible difference is that chars might be aligned on 64bit rather than 32bit boundaries.

struct {
  char a;
  char b;
}

Might take up 2 * 4 bytes on 32bit and 2 * 8 bytes on 64bit.

edit -actually it wouldn't. Any sane complier would repack a struct with only chars on byte boundary. However if you added a 'long c;' in the end anything could happen. That's why a) you have sizeof() and b) you should be careful doing manual pointer stuff in c.

Upvotes: 4

pmg
pmg

Reputation: 108938

There is no difference.
One char occupies one byte.
One byte has CHAR_BIT bits.

#include <limits.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    printf("a char occupies 1 byte of %d bits.\n", CHAR_BIT);
    return 0;
}

Upvotes: 8

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