Size of character ('a') in C/C++

Question

What is the size of character in C and C++ ? As far as I know the size of char is 1 byte in both C and C++.

In C:

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
  printf("Size of char : %d\n",sizeof(char));
  return 0;
}

In C++:

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
  std::cout<<"Size of char : "<<sizeof(char)<<"\n";
  return 0;
}

No surprises, both of them gives the output : Size of char : 1

Now we know that characters are represented as 'a','b','c','|',... So I just modified the above codes to these:

In C:

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
  char a = 'a';
  printf("Size of char : %d\n",sizeof(a));
  printf("Size of char : %d\n",sizeof('a'));
  return 0;
}

Output:

Size of char : 1
Size of char : 4

In C++:

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
  char a = 'a';
  std::cout<<"Size of char : "<<sizeof(a)<<"\n";
  std::cout<<"Size of char : "<<sizeof('a')<<"\n";
  return 0;
}

Output:

Size of char : 1
Size of char : 1

Why the sizeof('a') returns different values in C and C++?

Answer 1

As Paul stated, it's because 'a' is an int in C but a char in C++.

I cover that specific difference between C and C++ in something I wrote a few years ago, at: http://david.tribble.com/text/cdiffs.htm

Answer 2

In C the type of character literals are int and char in C++. This is in C++ required to support function overloading. See this example:

void foo(char c)
{
    puts("char");
}
void foo(int i)
{
    puts("int");
}
int main()
{
    foo('i');
    return 0;
}

Output:

char

Answer 3

In C, the type of a character constant like 'a' is actually an int, with size of 4 (or some other implementation-dependent value). In C++, the type is char, with size of 1. This is one of many small differences between the two languages.

Answer 4

In C language, character literal is not a char type. C considers character literal as integer. So, there is no difference between sizeof('a') and sizeof(1).

So, the sizeof character literal is equal to sizeof integer in C.

In C++ language, character literal is type of char. The cppreference say's:

1) narrow character literal or ordinary character literal, e.g. 'a' or '\n' or '\13'. Such literal has type char and the value equal to the representation of c-char in the execution character set. If c-char is not representable as a single byte in the execution character set, the literal has type int and implementation-defined value.

So, in C++ character literal is a type of char. so, size of character literal in C++ is one byte.

Alos, In your programs, you have used wrong format specifier for sizeof operator.

C11 §7.21.6.1 (P9) :

If a conversion specification is invalid, the behavior is undefined.275) If any argument is not the correct type for the corresponding conversion specification, the behavior is undefined.

So, you should use %zu format specifier instead of %d, otherwise it is undefined behaviour in C.