What does the C++ standard state the size of int,

Question

I'm looking for detailed information regarding the size of basic C++ types. I know that it depends on the architecture (16 bits, 32 bits, 64 bits) and the compiler.

But are there any standards for C++?

I'm using Visual Studio 2008 on a 32-bit architecture. Here is what I get:

char  : 1 byte
short : 2 bytes
int   : 4 bytes
long  : 4 bytes
float : 4 bytes
double: 8 bytes

I tried to find, without much success, reliable information stating the sizes of char, short, int, long, double, float (and other types I didn't think of) under different architectures and compilers.

Answer 1

On a 64-bit machine:

int: 4
long: 8
long long: 8
void*: 8
size_t: 8

Answer 2

If you are interested in a pure C++ solution, I made use of templates and only C++ standard code to define types at compile time based on their bit size. This make the solution portable across compilers.

The idea behind is very simple: Create a list containing types char, int, short, long, long long (signed and unsigned versions) and the scan the list and by the use of numeric_limits template select the type with given size.

Including this header you got 8 type stdtype::int8, stdtype::int16, stdtype::int32, stdtype::int64, stdtype::uint8, stdtype::uint16, stdtype::uint32, stdtype::uint64.

If some type cannot be represented it will be evaluated to stdtype::null_type also declared in that header.

THE CODE BELOW IS GIVEN WITHOUT WARRANTY, PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK IT.
I'M NEW AT METAPROGRAMMING TOO, FEEL FREE TO EDIT AND CORRECT THIS CODE.
Tested with DevC++ (so a gcc version around 3.5)

#include <limits>

namespace stdtype
{
    using namespace std;


    /*
     * THIS IS THE CLASS USED TO SEMANTICALLY SPECIFY A NULL TYPE.
     * YOU CAN USE WHATEVER YOU WANT AND EVEN DRIVE A COMPILE ERROR IF IT IS 
     * DECLARED/USED.
     *
     * PLEASE NOTE that C++ std define sizeof of an empty class to be 1.
     */
    class null_type{};

    /*
     *  Template for creating lists of types
     *
     *  T is type to hold
     *  S is the next type_list<T,S> type
     *
     *  Example:
     *   Creating a list with type int and char: 
     *      typedef type_list<int, type_list<char> > test;
     *      test::value         //int
     *      test::next::value   //char
     */
    template <typename T, typename S> struct type_list
    {
        typedef T value;
        typedef S next;         

    };




    /*
     * Declaration of template struct for selecting a type from the list
     */
    template <typename list, int b, int ctl> struct select_type;


    /*
     * Find a type with specified "b" bit in list "list"
     *
     * 
     */
    template <typename list, int b> struct find_type
    {   
        private:
            //Handy name for the type at the head of the list
            typedef typename list::value cur_type;

            //Number of bits of the type at the head
            //CHANGE THIS (compile time) exp TO USE ANOTHER TYPE LEN COMPUTING
            enum {cur_type_bits = numeric_limits<cur_type>::digits};

        public:
            //Select the type at the head if b == cur_type_bits else
            //select_type call find_type with list::next
            typedef  typename select_type<list, b, cur_type_bits>::type type;
    };

    /*
     * This is the specialization for empty list, return the null_type
     * OVVERRIDE this struct to ADD CUSTOM BEHAVIOR for the TYPE NOT FOUND case
     * (ie search for type with 17 bits on common archs)
     */
    template <int b> struct find_type<null_type, b>
    {   
        typedef null_type type;

    };


    /*
     * Primary template for selecting the type at the head of the list if
     * it matches the requested bits (b == ctl)
     *
     * If b == ctl the partial specified templated is evaluated so here we have
     * b != ctl. We call find_type on the next element of the list
     */
    template <typename list, int b, int ctl> struct select_type
    {   
            typedef  typename find_type<typename list::next, b>::type type; 
    };

    /*
     * This partial specified templated is used to select top type of a list
     * it is called by find_type with the list of value (consumed at each call)
     * the bits requested (b) and the current type (top type) length in bits
     *
     * We specialice the b == ctl case
     */
    template <typename list, int b> struct select_type<list, b, b>
    {
            typedef typename list::value type;
    };


    /*
     * These are the types list, to avoid possible ambiguity (some weird archs)
     * we kept signed and unsigned separated
     */

    #define UNSIGNED_TYPES type_list<unsigned char,         \
        type_list<unsigned short,                           \
        type_list<unsigned int,                             \
        type_list<unsigned long,                            \
        type_list<unsigned long long, null_type> > > > >

    #define SIGNED_TYPES type_list<signed char,         \
        type_list<signed short,                         \
        type_list<signed int,                           \
        type_list<signed long,                          \
        type_list<signed long long, null_type> > > > >



    /*
     * These are acutally typedef used in programs.
     * 
     * Nomenclature is [u]intN where u if present means unsigned, N is the 
     * number of bits in the integer
     *
     * find_type is used simply by giving first a type_list then the number of 
     * bits to search for.
     *
     * NB. Each type in the type list must had specified the template 
     * numeric_limits as it is used to compute the type len in (binary) digit.
     */
    typedef find_type<UNSIGNED_TYPES, 8>::type  uint8;
    typedef find_type<UNSIGNED_TYPES, 16>::type uint16;
    typedef find_type<UNSIGNED_TYPES, 32>::type uint32;
    typedef find_type<UNSIGNED_TYPES, 64>::type uint64;

    typedef find_type<SIGNED_TYPES, 7>::type    int8;
    typedef find_type<SIGNED_TYPES, 15>::type   int16;
    typedef find_type<SIGNED_TYPES, 31>::type   int32;
    typedef find_type<SIGNED_TYPES, 63>::type   int64;

}

Answer 3

There is standard.

C90 standard requires that

sizeof(short) <= sizeof(int) <= sizeof(long)

C99 standard requires that

sizeof(short) <= sizeof(int) <= sizeof(long) <= sizeof(long long)

Here is the C99 specifications. Page 22 details sizes of different integral types.

Here is the int type sizes (bits) for Windows platforms:

Type           C99 Minimum     Windows 32bit
char           8               8
short          16              16
int            16              32
long           32              32
long long      64              64

If you are concerned with portability, or you want the name of the type reflects the size, you can look at the header <inttypes.h>, where the following macros are available:

int8_t
int16_t
int32_t
int64_t

int8_t is guaranteed to be 8 bits, and int16_t is guaranteed to be 16 bits, etc.

Answer 4

unsigned char bits = sizeof(X) << 3;

where X is a char,int,long etc.. will give you size of X in bits.

Answer 5

I notice that all the other answers here have focused almost exclusively on integral types, while the questioner also asked about floating-points.

I don't think the C++ standard requires it, but compilers for the most common platforms these days generally follow the IEEE754 standard for their floating-point numbers. This standard specifies four types of binary floating-point (as well as some BCD formats, which I've never seen support for in C++ compilers):

• Half precision (binary16) - 11-bit significand, exponent range -14 to 15
• Single precision (binary32) - 24-bit significand, exponent range -126 to 127
• Double precision (binary64) - 53-bit significand, exponent range -1022 to 1023
• Quadruple precision (binary128) - 113-bit significand, exponent range -16382 to 16383

How does this map onto C++ types, then? Generally the float uses single precision; thus, sizeof(float) = 4. Then double uses double precision (I believe that's the source of the name double), and long double may be either double or quadruple precision (it's quadruple on my system, but on 32-bit systems it may be double). I don't know of any compilers that offer half precision floating-points.

In summary, this is the usual:

• sizeof(float) = 4
• sizeof(double) = 8
• sizeof(long double) = 8 or 16

Answer 6

There are four types of integers based on size:

• short integer: 2 byte
• long integer: 4 byte
• long long integer: 8 byte
• integer: depends upon the compiler (16 bit, 32 bit, or 64 bit)