What is size_t in C?

Question

I am getting confused with size_t in C. I know that it is returned by the sizeof operator. But what exactly is it? Is it a data type?

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Answer 1

size_t is an unsigned integer data type which can assign only 0 and greater than 0 integer values. It measure bytes of any object's size and returned by sizeof operator. const is the syntax representation of size_t, but without const you can run the programm.

const size_t number;

size_t regularly used for array indexing and loop counting. If the compiler is 32-bit it would work on unsigned int. If the compiler is 64-bit it would work on unsigned long long int also. There for maximum size of size_t depending on compiler type.

size_t already define on <stdio.h> header file, but It can also define by <stddef.h>, <stdlib.h>, <string.h>, <time.h>, <wchar.h> headers.

• Example (with const)

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    const size_t value = 200;
    size_t i;
    int arr[value];

    for (i = 0 ; i < value ; ++i)
    {
        arr[i] = i;
    }

    size_t size = sizeof(arr);
    printf("size = %zu\n", size);
}

Output -: size = 800

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• Example (without const)

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    size_t value = 200;
    size_t i;
    int arr[value];

    for (i = 0 ; i < value ; ++i)
    {
        arr[i] = i;
    }

    size_t size = sizeof(arr);
    printf("size = %zu\n", size);
}

Output -: size = 800