When to use short instead of int?

Question

Two use cases for which I would consider short come to mind:

1. I want an integer type that\'s at least 16 bits in size
2. I want an integer type t

Answer 1

Yes, if you really want a particular data size you use int16_t, int32_t, etc.

int16_t is usually a platform-specific typedef from short (or whatever maps to 16 bits). On a 32-bit machine, int16_t may be typedef'd as short, on a 16-bit machine int16_t may be typedef as int.