CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ccharsizeof
BURNS
BURNS

Reputation: 701

Why is an element of an array bigger than the type?

I am fairly new to C and during one of my exercises I encountered something I couldn't wrap my head around. When I check the size of an element of tabel (which here is 'b') than I get 4. However if I were to check 'char' than I get 1. How come?

# include <stdio.h>

int main(){
    char tabel[10] = {'b','f','r','o','a','u','v','t','o'};
    int size_tabel = (sizeof(tabel));
    int size_char = (sizeof('b'));
/*edit the above line to sizeof(char) to get 1 instead of 4*/
    int length_tabel = size_tabel/size_char;
    printf("size_tabel = %i, size_char = %i, lengte_tabel= %i",size_tabel,
        size_char,length_tabel);
    }

Upvotes: 2

Views: 121

Answers (4)

Jay Godara
Jay Godara

Reputation: 178

sizeof(tabel)

This will return the size of table which is sizeof(char) * 10

sizeof('b')

This will return the sizeof(char) which is one.

Upvotes: 1

ouah
ouah

Reputation: 145919

An integer character constant, e.g., 'b' has type int in C.

From the C Standard:

(c11, 6.4.4.4p10) "An integer character constant has type int. [...] If an integer character constant contains a single character or escape sequence, its value is the one that results when an object with type char whose value is that of the single character or escape sequence is converted to type int."

This is different than C++ where an integer character constant has type char:

(c++11, 2.14.3) "An ordinary character literal that contains a single c-char has type char, with value equal to the numerical value of the encoding of the c-char in the execution character set."

Upvotes: 3

Jeffery Thomas
Jeffery Thomas

Reputation: 42598

'b' is not of type char. 'b' is a literal and it's type is int.

From C11 Standard Draft (ISO/IEC 9899:201x): 6.4.4.4 Character constants: Description

An integer character constant is a sequence of one or more multibyte characters enclosed in single-quotes, as in 'x'.

Upvotes: 6

Bgie
Bgie

Reputation: 513

The 'b' literal is an int. And on your current platform, an int is 4 bytes.

Upvotes: 5

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