How do I determine the size of my array in C?

Question

How do I determine the size of my array in C?

That is, the number of elements the array can hold?

Answer 1

@ Magnus: The standard defines sizeof as yielding the number of bytes in the object and that sizeof (char) is always one. The number of bits in a byte is implementation specific.

Edit: ANSI C++ standard section 5.3.3 Sizeof:

The sizeof operator yields the number of bytes in the object representation of its operand. [...] sizeof (char), sizeof (signed char) and sizeof (unsigned char) are 1; the result of sizeof applied to any other fundamental type is implementation-defined.

Section 1.6 The C++ memory model:

The fundamental storage unit in the C++ memory model is the byte. A byte is at least large enough to contain any member of the basic execution character set and is composed of a contiguous sequence of bits, the number of which is implementation-defined.

Answer 2

You can use sizeof operator but it will not work for functions because it will take the reference of pointer you can do the following to find the length of an array:

len = sizeof(arr)/sizeof(arr[0])

Code originally found here: C program to find the number of elements in an array

Answer 3

If you really want to do this to pass around your array I suggest implementing a structure to store a pointer to the type you want an array of and an integer representing the size of the array. Then you can pass that around to your functions. Just assign the array variable value (pointer to first element) to that pointer. Then you can go Array.arr[i] to get the i-th element and use Array.size to get the number of elements in the array.

I included some code for you. It's not very useful but you could extend it with more features. To be honest though, if these are the things you want you should stop using C and use another language with these features built in.

/* Absolutely no one should use this...
   By the time you're done implementing it you'll wish you just passed around
   an array and size to your functions */
/* This is a static implementation. You can get a dynamic implementation and 
   cut out the array in main by using the stdlib memory allocation methods,
   but it will work much slower since it will store your array on the heap */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
/*
#include "MyTypeArray.h"
*/
/* MyTypeArray.h 
#ifndef MYTYPE_ARRAY
#define MYTYPE_ARRAY
*/
typedef struct MyType
{
   int age;
   char name[20];
} MyType;
typedef struct MyTypeArray
{
   int size;
   MyType *arr;
} MyTypeArray;

MyType new_MyType(int age, char *name);
MyTypeArray newMyTypeArray(int size, MyType *first);
/*
#endif
End MyTypeArray.h */

/* MyTypeArray.c */
MyType new_MyType(int age, char *name)
{
   MyType d;
   d.age = age;
   strcpy(d.name, name);
   return d;
}

MyTypeArray new_MyTypeArray(int size, MyType *first)
{
   MyTypeArray d;
   d.size = size;
   d.arr = first;
   return d;
}
/* End MyTypeArray.c */


void print_MyType_names(MyTypeArray d)
{
   int i;
   for (i = 0; i < d.size; i++)
   {
      printf("Name: %s, Age: %d\n", d.arr[i].name, d.arr[i].age);
   }
}

int main()
{
   /* First create an array on the stack to store our elements in.
      Note we could create an empty array with a size instead and
      set the elements later. */
   MyType arr[] = {new_MyType(10, "Sam"), new_MyType(3, "Baxter")};
   /* Now create a "MyTypeArray" which will use the array we just
      created internally. Really it will just store the value of the pointer
      "arr". Here we are manually setting the size. You can use the sizeof
      trick here instead if you're sure it will work with your compiler. */
   MyTypeArray array = new_MyTypeArray(2, arr);
   /* MyTypeArray array = new_MyTypeArray(sizeof(arr)/sizeof(arr[0]), arr); */
   print_MyType_names(array);
   return 0;
}

Answer 4

int size = (&arr)[1] - arr;

Check out this link for explanation

Answer 5

The macro ARRAYELEMENTCOUNT(x) that everyone is making use of evaluates incorrectly. This, realistically, is just a sensitive matter, because you can't have expressions that result in an 'array' type.

/* Compile as: CL /P "macro.c" */
# define ARRAYELEMENTCOUNT(x) (sizeof (x) / sizeof (x[0]))

ARRAYELEMENTCOUNT(p + 1);

Actually evaluates as:

(sizeof (p + 1) / sizeof (p + 1[0]));

Whereas

/* Compile as: CL /P "macro.c" */
# define ARRAYELEMENTCOUNT(x) (sizeof (x) / sizeof (x)[0])

ARRAYELEMENTCOUNT(p + 1);

It correctly evaluates to:

(sizeof (p + 1) / sizeof (p + 1)[0]);

This really doesn't have a lot to do with the size of arrays explicitly. I've just noticed a lot of errors from not truly observing how the C preprocessor works. You always wrap the macro parameter, not an expression in might be involved in.

---

This is correct; my example was a bad one. But that's actually exactly what should happen. As I previously mentioned p + 1 will end up as a pointer type and invalidate the entire macro (just like if you attempted to use the macro in a function with a pointer parameter).

At the end of the day, in this particular instance, the fault doesn't really matter (so I'm just wasting everyone's time; huzzah!), because you don't have expressions with a type of 'array'. But really the point about preprocessor evaluation subtles I think is an important one.

Answer 6

Size of an array in C:

int a[10];
size_t size_of_array = sizeof(a);      // Size of array a
int n = sizeof (a) / sizeof (a[0]);    // Number of elements in array a
size_t size_of_element = sizeof(a[0]); // Size of each element in array a                                          
                                       // Size of each element = size of type