Is the size of C "int" 2 bytes or 4 bytes?

c int byte
Rajiv Prathap picture Rajiv Prathap · Jul 11, 2012 · Viewed 594.6k times · Source

Does an Integer variable in C occupy 2 bytes or 4 bytes? What are the factors that it depends on?

Most of the textbooks say integer variables occupy 2 bytes. But when I run a program printing the successive addresses of an array of integers it shows the difference of 4.

Answer

yhyrcanus picture yhyrcanus · Jul 11, 2012

I know it's equal to sizeof(int). The size of an int is really compiler dependent. Back in the day, when processors were 16 bit, an int was 2 bytes. Nowadays, it's most often 4 bytes on a 32-bit as well as 64-bit systems.

Still, using sizeof(int) is the best way to get the size of an integer for the specific system the program is executed on.

EDIT: Fixed wrong statement that int is 8 bytes on most 64-bit systems. For example, it is 4 bytes on 64-bit GCC.

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