Determining maximum possible alignment in C++

Question

Is there any portable way to determine what the maximum possible alignment for any type is?

For example on x86, SSE instructions require 16-byte alignm

Answer 1

This is what I'm using. In addition to this, if you're allocating memory then a new()'d array of char with length greater than or equal to max_alignment will be aligned to max_alignment so you can then use indexes into that array to get aligned addresses.

enum {
            max_alignment = boost::mpl::deref<
                boost::mpl::max_element<
                        boost::mpl::vector<
                            boost::mpl::int_::value>::type,
                            boost::mpl::int_::value>::type,
                            boost::mpl::int_::value>::type,                                boost::mpl::int_::value>::type,
                            boost::mpl::int_::value>::type,
                            boost::mpl::int_::value>::type,
                            boost::mpl::int_::value>::type,
                            boost::mpl::int_::value>::type
                        >::type
                    >::type
                >::type::value
            };
        }