How to find the size of structure?

[AnagJohari]

hello guys, Can u tell me how to find the size of structure.
Please explain by giving some example.
Thank you

[alexis4]

Add the size of your structure's members and you will have the structure's size!

typedef struct
{
  int a;
  float b;
} MY_STRUCT;

The size of MY_STRUCT would be sizeof(int) + sizeof(float).
So you can use the sizeof() function to acquire this information during runtime.

unsigned char MY_STRUCTSize = sizeof(MY_STRUCT);

And if you want to verify that the structure is the sum of its members:

MY_STRUCT myStruct;
unsigned char myStructSize = sizeof(myStruct);
unsigned char myStructSizea = sizeof(myStruct.a);
unsigned char myStructSizeb = sizeof(myStruct.b);

Note that I am not giving you fixed sizes because they depend on the platform and compiler. For my embedded enviroment's compiler, variables sizes are platform independent. So if I compile the above code I will get sizeof(myStruct .a) = 2, sizeof(myStruct .b) = 4 and sizeof(myStruct ) = 6.

[Banfa]

Add the size of your structure's members and you will have the structure's size!

The size of MY_STRUCT would be sizeof(int) + sizeof(float).

No generally this is not true.

MY_STRUCT myStruct;
unsigned char myStructSize = sizeof(myStruct);
unsigned char myStructSizea = sizeof(myStruct.a);
unsigned char myStructSizeb = sizeof(myStruct.b);

If you do this you need to be very careful because on the majority of platforms

myStructSize != myStructSizea + myStructSizeb

because the compiler puts padding bytes into the structure to maintain correct member alignment for efficient access.

sizeof(myStruct ) will give you the size of the structure including any padding bytes, for example should you want to use malloc to allocate memory for it.


The are some platforms, typically 8bit ones where the compiler does not include any padding bytes on which the size of the structure is the sum of the size of its members.

[AnagJohari]

No generally this is not true.

MY_STRUCT myStruct;
unsigned char myStructSize = sizeof(myStruct);
unsigned char myStructSizea = sizeof(myStruct.a);
unsigned char myStructSizeb = sizeof(myStruct.b);

If you do this you need to be very careful because on the majority of platforms

myStructSize != myStructSizea + myStructSizeb

because the compiler puts padding bytes into the structure to maintain correct member alignment for efficient access.

sizeof(myStruct ) will give you the size of the structure including any padding bytes, for example should you want to use malloc to allocate memory for it.


The are some platforms, typically 8bit ones where the compiler does not include any padding bytes on which the size of the structure is the sum of the size of its members.

can u give the example in which padding is used so can know what is the size of structure.

[Banfa]

The example already given could have padding. Like I said most structures could. Typically padding occurs when you have a structure with several differently sized objects in it for example

struct example1
{
  char a;
  short b;
  float c;
};

struct example2
{
  float c;
  short b;
  char a;
};

How much padding a structure has is entirely platform dependent.

In this case sizeof(example1 ) will always return the size of the structure on the current platform, including padding bytes.

[AnagJohari]

The example already given could have padding. Like I said most structures could. Typically padding occurs when you have a structure with several differently sized objects in it for example

struct example1
{
  char a;
  short b;
  float c;
};

struct example2
{
  float c;
  short b;
  char a;
};

How much padding a structure has is entirely platform dependent.

In this case sizeof(example1 ) will always return the size of the structure on the current platform, including padding bytes.

if we declare two integer varibles then what is the size of structure.
like this

struct st1
{
int a;
int b;
}

in my opinion the ans is 4
but the actual ans is 2
i donot know what is the reason behind this

[Dheeraj Joshi]

When i run this code in my Linux machine (gcc version 3.4.6 20060404). The output is

8

This is as expected(since int is taking 4 bytes.)

If your machine is taking 2 bytes to represent an int then the size of the structure will be 4.

Regards
Dheeraj Joshi

[Banfa]

if we declare two integer varibles then what is the size of structure.
like this

struct st1
{
int a;
int b;
}

in my opinion the ans is 4
but the actual ans is 2
i donot know what is the reason behind this

in my opinion the ans is 4
but the actual ans is 2
i donot know what is the reason behind this

neither do we/I unless you show us the code you used to get the "actual answer".