Double word тип данных

Целые числа

Данные каким-либо образом необходимо представлять в памяти компьютера. Существует множество различных типов данных, простых и довольно сложных, имеющих большое число компонентов и свойств. Однако, для компьютера необходимо использовать некий унифицированный способ представления данных, некоторые элементарные составляющие, с помощью которых можно представить данные абсолютно любых типов. Этими составляющими являются числа, а вернее, цифры, из которых они состоят. С помощью цифр можно закодировать практически любую дискретную информацию. Поэтому такая информация часто называется цифровой (в отличие от аналоговой, непрерывной).

Первым делом необходимо выбрать систему счисления, наиболее подходящую для применения в конкретных устройствах. Для электронных устройств самой простой реализацией является двоичная система: есть ток — нет тока, или малый уровень тока — большой уровень тока. Хотя наиболее эффективной являлась бы троичная система. Наверное, выбор двоичной системы связан еще и с использование перфокарт, в которых она проявляется в виде наличия или отсутствия отверстия. Отсюда в качестве цифр для представления информации используются 0 и 1.

Таким образом данные в компьютере представляются в виде потока нулей и единиц. Один разряд этого потока называется битом. Однако в таком виде неудобно оперировать с данными вручную. Стандартом стало разделение всего потока на равные последовательные группы из 8 битов — байты или октеты. Далее несколько байтов могут составлять слово. Здесь следует разделять машинное слово и слово как тип данных. В первом случае его разрядность обычно равна разрядности процессора, т.к. машинное слово является наиболее эффективным элементом для его работы. В случае, когда слово трактуется как тип данных (word), его разрядность всегда равна 16 битам (два последовательных байта). Также как типы данных существую двойные слова (double word, dword, 32 бита), четверные слова (quad word, qword, 64 бита) и т.п.

Теперь мы вплотную подошли к представлению целых чисел в памяти. Т.к. у нас есть байты и различные слова, то можно создать целочисленные типы данных, которые будут соответствовать этим элементарным элементам: byte (8 бит), word (16 бит), dword (32 бита), qword (64 бита) и т.д. При этом любое число этих типов имеет обычное двоичное представление, дополненное нулями до соответствующей размерности. Можно заметить, что число меньшей размерности можно легко представить в виде числа большей размерности, дополнив его нулями, однако в обратном случае это не верно. Поэтому для представления числа большей размерности необходимо использовать несколько чисел меньшей размерности. Например:

Если A — число, B₁..B_k — части числа, N — разрядность числа, M — разрядность части, N = k*M, то:

Например:

Существуют понятия младшая часть (low) и старшая часть (hi) числа. Старшая часть входит в число с коэффициентом 2^N-M, а младшая с коэффициентом 2⁰. Например:

Байты числа можно хранить в памяти в различном порядке. В настоящее время используются два способа расположения: в прямом порядке байт и в обратном порядке байт. В первом случае старший байт записывается в начале, затем последовательно записываются остальные байты, вплоть до младшего. Такой способ используется в процессорах Motorola и SPARC. Во втором случае, наоборот, сначала записывает младший байт, а затем последовательно остальные байты, вплоть до старшего. Такой способ используется в процессорах архитектуры x86 и x64. Далее приведен пример:

Используя подобные целочисленные типы можно представить большое количество неотрицательных чисел: от 0 до 2^N-1, где N — разрядность типа. Однако, целочисленный тип подразумевает представление также и отрицательных чисел. Можно ввести отдельные типы для отрицательных чисел от -2^N до -1, но тогда такие типы потеряют универсальность хранить и неотрицательные, и отрицательные числа. Поэтому для определения знака числа можно выделить один бит из двоичного представления. По соглашению, это старший бит. Остальная часть числа называется мантиссой.

Если старший бит равен нулю, то мантисса есть обычное представление числа от 0 до 2^N-1-1. Если же старший бит равен 1, то число является отрицательным и мантисса представляет собой так называемый дополнительный код числа. Поясним на примере:

Как видно из рисунка, дополнительный код равен разнице между числом 2^N-1 и модулем исходного отрицательного числа (127 (1111111) = 128 (10000000) — |-1| (0000001)). Из этого вытекает, что сумма основного и дополнительного кода одного и того же числа равна 2^N-1.

Из вышеописанного получается, что можно использовать только целочисленные типы со знаком для описания чисел. Однако существует множество сущностей, которые не требуют отрицательных значений, а значит, место под знак можно включить в представление неотрицательного числа, удвоив количество различных неотрицательных значений. Как результат, в современных компьютерах используются как типы со знаком или знаковые типы, так и типы без знака или беззнаковые типы.

В итоге можно составить таблицу наиболее используемых целочисленных типов данных:

Home * Programming * Data * Double Word

According to Intel’s definition of a x86 16-bit Word, a Double Word refers a 32-bit entity, while IBM 360 and successors with 32-bit words have double words with 64-bit.

Integer and long

Even in x86-64, double words are still considered as default word size. x86 and and x86-64 C-Compiler use double words as signed and unsigned integers, Java integers as well. Microsoft 64 bit compiler long is a 32-bit Double word as well, while with 64-bit GCC uses 64-bit Quad Words as longs.

typedef unsigned int DWORD;

Ranges

Alignment

Double Words stored in memory should be stored at byte addresses divisible by four. Otherwise at runtime it will cause a miss-alignment exception on some processors, or a huge penalty on others.

Endianness

Main article: Endianness.

Litte-endian Layout

The little-endian memory layout, as typical for Intel x86 cpus.
For instance the double word integer 16909060 or 0x01020304:

Big-endian Layout

The big-endian memory layout, as typical for Motorola cpus.
For instance the double word integer 16909060 or 0x01020304:

See also

• Piece-Sets
• Byte
• Word
• Quad Word

External Links

• Dword, Qword, and Oword from Wikipedia
• Byte from Wikipedia
• Endianness from Wikipedia
• Understanding Big and Little Endian Byte Order
• DAV’s Endian FAQ — ON HOLY WARS AND A PLEA FOR PEACE by Danny Cohen

Up one Level

One of the first things that is going to strike many first-time programmers of the Win32 API is that there are tons and tons of old data types to deal with. Sometimes, just keeping all the correct data types in order can be more difficult than writing a nice program. This page will talk a little bit about some of the data types that a programmer will come in contact with.

Hungarian Notation[edit | edit source]

First, let’s make a quick note about the naming convention used for some data types, and some variables. The Win32 API uses the so-called «Hungarian Notation» for naming variables. Hungarian Notation requires that a variable be prefixed with an abbreviation of its data type, so that when you are reading the code, you know exactly what type of variable it is. The reason this practice is done in the Win32 API is because there are many different data types, making it difficult to keep them all straight. Also, there are a number of different data types that are essentially defined the same way, and therefore some compilers will not pick up on errors when they are used incorrectly. As we discuss each data type, we will also note the common prefixes for that data type.

Putting the letter «P» in front of a data type, or «p» in front of a variable usually indicates that the variable is a pointer. The letters «LP» or the prefix «lp» stands for «Long Pointer», which is exactly the same as a regular pointer on 32 bit machines. LP data objects are simply legacy objects that were carried over from Windows 3.1 or earlier, when pointers and long pointers needed to be differentiated. On modern 32-bit systems, these prefixes can be used interchangeably.

LPVOID[edit | edit source]

LPVOID data types are defined as being a «pointer to a void object». This may seem strange to some people, but the ANSI-C standard allows for generic pointers to be defined as «void*» types. This means that LPVOID pointers can be used to point to any type of object, without creating a compiler error. However, the burden is on the programmer to keep track of what type of object is being pointed to.

Also, some Win32 API functions may have arguments labeled as «LPVOID lpReserved». These reserved data members should never be used in your program, because they either depend on functionality that hasn’t yet been implemented by Microsoft, or else they are only used in certain applications. If you see a function with an «LPVOID lpReserved» argument, you must always pass a NULL value for that parameter — some functions will fail if you do not do so.

LPVOID objects frequently do not have prefixes, although it is relatively common to prefix an LPVOID variable with the letter «p», as it is a pointer.

DWORD, WORD, BYTE[edit | edit source]

These data types are defined to be a specific length, regardless of the target platform. There is a certain amount of additional complexity in the header files to achieve this, but the result is code that is very well standardized, and very portable to different hardware platforms and different compilers.

DWORDs (Double WORDs), the most commonly occurring of these data types, are defined always to be unsigned 32-bit quantities. On any machine, be it 16, 32, or 64 bits, a DWORD is always 32 bits long. Because of this strict definition, DWORDS are very common and popular on 32-bit machines, but are less common on 16-bit and 64-bit machines.

WORDs (Single WORDs) are defined strictly as unsigned 16-bit values, regardless of what machine you are programming on. BYTEs are defined strictly as being unsigned 8-bit values. QWORDs (Quad WORDs), although rare, are defined as being unsigned 64-bit quantities. Putting a «P» in front of any of these identifiers indicates that the variable is a pointer. putting two «P»s in front indicates it’s a pointer to a pointer. These variables may be unprefixed, or they may use any of the prefixes common with DWORDs. Because of the differences in compilers, the definition of these data types may be different, but typically these definitions are used:

#include <stdint.h>

typedef uint8_t BYTE;
typedef uint16_t WORD;
typedef uint32_t DWORD;
typedef uint64_t QWORD;

Notice that these definitions are not the same in all compilers. It is a known issue that the GNU GCC compiler uses the long and short specifiers differently from the Microsoft C Compiler. For this reason, the windows header files typically will use conditional declarations for these data types, depending on the compiler being used. In this way, code can be more portable.

As usual, we can define pointers to these types as:

#include <stdint.h>

typedef uint8_t * PBYTE;
typedef uint16_t * PWORD;
typedef uint32_t * PDWORD;
typedef uint64_t * PQWORD;

typedef uint8_t ** PPBYTE;
typedef uint16_t ** PPWORD;
typedef uint32_t ** PPDWORD;
typedef uint64_t ** PPQWORD;

DWORD variables are typically prefixed with «dw». Likewise, we have the following prefixes:

LONG, INT, SHORT, CHAR[edit | edit source]

These types are not defined to a specific length. It is left to the host machine to determine exactly how many bits each of these types has.

Types

typedef long LONG;
typedef unsigned long ULONG;
typedef int INT;
typedef unsigned int UINT;
typedef short SHORT;
typedef unsigned short USHORT;
typedef char CHAR;
typedef unsigned char UCHAR;

LONG notation

LONG variables are typically prefixed with an «l» (lower-case L).

UINT notation

UINT variables are typically prefixed with an «i» or a «ui» to indicate that it is an integer, and that it is unsigned.

CHAR, UCHAR notation

These variables are usually prefixed with a «c» or a «uc» respectively.

If the size of the variable doesn’t matter, you can use some of these integer types. However, if you want to exactly specify the size of a variable, so that it has a certain number of bits, use the BYTE, WORD, DWORD, or QWORD identifiers, because their lengths are platform-independent and never change.

STR, LPSTR[edit | edit source]

STR data types are string data types, with storage already allocated. This data type is less common than the LPSTR. STR data types are used when the string is supposed to be treated as an immediate array, and not as a simple character pointer. The variable name prefix for a STR data type is «sz» because it’s a zero-terminated string (ends with a null character).

Most programmers will not define a variable as a STR, opting instead to define it as a character array, because defining it as an array allows the size of the array to be set explicitly. Also, creating a large string on the stack can cause greatly undesirable stack-overflow problems.

LPSTR stands for «Long Pointer to a STR», and is essentially defined as such:

#define STR * LPSTR;

LPSTR can be used exactly like other string objects, except that LPSTR is explicitly defined as being ASCII, not unicode, and this definition will hold on all platforms. LPSTR variables will usually be prefixed with the letters «lpsz» to denote a «Long Pointer to a String that is Zero-terminated». The «sz» part of the prefix is important, because some strings in the Windows world (especially when talking about the DDK) are not zero-terminated. LPSTR data types, and variables prefixed with the «lpsz» prefix can all be used seamlessly with the standard library <string.h> functions.

TCHAR[edit | edit source]

TCHAR data types, as will be explained in the section on Unicode, are generic character data types. TCHAR can hold either standard 1-byte ASCII characters, or wide 2-byte Unicode characters. Because this data type is defined by a macro and is not set in stone, only character data should be used with this type. TCHAR is defined in a manner similar to the following (although it may be different for different compilers):

#ifdef UNICODE
#define TCHAR WORD
#else
#define TCHAR BYTE
#endif

TSTR, LPTSTR[edit | edit source]

Strings of TCHARs are typically referred to as TSTR data types. More commonly, they are defined as LPTSTR types as such:

#define TCHAR * LPTSTR

These strings can be either UNICODE or ASCII, depending on the status of the UNICODE macro. LPTSTR data types are long pointers to generic strings, and may contain either ASCII strings or Unicode strings, depending on the environment being used. LPTSTR data types are also prefixed with the letters «lpsz».

HANDLE[edit | edit source]

HANDLE data types are some of the most important data objects in Win32 programming, and also some of the hardest for new programmers to understand. Inside the kernel, Windows maintains a table of all the different objects that the kernel is responsible for. Windows, buttons, icons, mouse pointers, menus, and so on, all get an entry in the table, and each entry is assigned a unique address known as a HANDLE. If you want to pick a particular entry out of that table, you need to give Windows the HANDLE value, and Windows will return the corresponding table entry.

HANDLEs are defined as void pointers (void*). They are used as unique identifiers to each Windows object in our program such as a button, a window an icon, etc. Specifically their definition follows:
typedef PVOID HANDLE;
and
typedef void *PVOID;
In other words HANDLE = void*.

HANDLEs are generally prefixed with an «h». Handles are unsigned integers that Windows uses internally to keep track of objects in memory. Windows moves objects like memory blocks in memory to make room, if the object is moved in memory, the handles table is updated.

Below are a few special handles that are worth discussing:

HWND[edit | edit source]

HWND data types are «Handles to a Window», and are used to keep track of the various objects that appear on the screen. To communicate with a particular window, you need to have a copy of the window’s handle. HWND variables are usually prefixed with the letters «hwnd», just so the programmer knows they are important.

Canonically, main windows are defined as:

HWND hwnd;

Child windows are defined as:

HWND hwndChild1, hwndChild2...

and Dialog Box handles are defined as:

HWND hDlg;

Although you are free to name these variables whatever you want in your own program, readability and compatibility suffer when an idiosyncratic naming scheme is chosen — or worse, no scheme at all.

HINSTANCE[edit | edit source]

HINSTANCE variables are handles to a program instance. Each program gets a single instance variable, and this is important so that the kernel can communicate with the program. If you want to create a new window, for instance, you need to pass your program’s HINSTANCE variable to the kernel, so that the kernel knows what program instance the new window belongs to. If you want to communicate with another program, it is frequently very useful to have a copy of that program’s instance handle. HINSTANCE variables are usually prefixed with an «h», and furthermore, since there is frequently only one HINSTANCE variable in a program, it is canonical to declare that variable as such:

HINSTANCE hInstance;

It is usually a benefit to make this HINSTANCE variable a global value, so that all your functions can access it when needed.

[edit | edit source]

If your program has a drop-down menu available (as most visual Windows programs do), that menu will have an HMENU handle associated with it. To display the menu, or to alter its contents, you need to have access to this HMENU handle. HMENU handles are frequently prefixed with simply an «h».

WPARAM, LPARAM[edit | edit source]

In the earlier days of Microsoft Windows, parameters were passed to a window in one of two formats: WORD-length (16-bit) parameters, and LONG-length (32-bit) parameters. These parameter types were defined as being WPARAM (16-bit) and LPARAM (32-bit). However, in modern 32-bit systems, WPARAM and LPARAM are both 32 bits long. The names however have not changed, for legacy reasons.

WPARAM and LPARAM variables are generic function parameters, and are frequently type-cast to other data types including pointers and DWORDs.

Next Chapter[edit | edit source]

• Unicode

In the C programming language, data types constitute the semantics and characteristics of storage of data elements. They are expressed in the language syntax in form of declarations for memory locations or variables. Data types also determine the types of operations or methods of processing of data elements.

The C language provides basic arithmetic types, such as integer and real number types, and syntax to build array and compound types. Headers for the C standard library, to be used via include directives, contain definitions of support types, that have additional properties, such as providing storage with an exact size, independent of the language implementation on specific hardware platforms.^[1][2]

Basic types[edit]

Main types[edit]

The C language provides the four basic arithmetic type specifiers char, int, float and double, and the modifiers signed, unsigned, short, and long. The following table lists the permissible combinations in specifying a large set of storage size-specific declarations.

The actual size of the integer types varies by implementation. The standard requires only size relations between the data types and minimum sizes for each data type:

The relation requirements are that the long long is not smaller than long, which is not smaller than int, which is not smaller than short. As char‘s size is always the minimum supported data type, no other data types (except bit-fields) can be smaller.

The minimum size for char is 8 bits, the minimum size for short and int is 16 bits, for long it is 32 bits and long long must contain at least 64 bits.

The type int should be the integer type that the target processor is most efficiently working with. This allows great flexibility: for example, all types can be 64-bit. However, several different integer width schemes (data models) are popular. Because the data model defines how different programs communicate, a uniform data model is used within a given operating system application interface.^[8]

In practice, char is usually 8 bits in size and short is usually 16 bits in size (as are their unsigned counterparts). This holds true for platforms as diverse as 1990s SunOS 4 Unix, Microsoft MS-DOS, modern Linux, and Microchip MCC18 for embedded 8-bit PIC microcontrollers. POSIX requires char to be exactly 8 bits in size.^[9][10]

Various rules in the C standard make unsigned char the basic type used for arrays suitable to store arbitrary non-bit-field objects: its lack of padding bits and trap representations, the definition of object representation,^[6] and the possibility of aliasing.^[11]

The actual size and behavior of floating-point types also vary by implementation. The only requirement is that long double is not smaller than double, which is not smaller than float. Usually, the 32-bit and 64-bit IEEE 754 binary floating-point formats are used for float and double respectively.

The C99 standard includes new real floating-point types float_t and double_t, defined in <math.h>. They correspond to the types used for the intermediate results of floating-point expressions when FLT_EVAL_METHOD is 0, 1, or 2. These types may be wider than long double.

C99 also added complex types: float _Complex, double _Complex, long double _Complex.

Boolean type[edit]

C99 added a boolean (true/false) type _Bool. Additionally, the <stdbool.h> header defines bool as a convenient alias for this type, and also provides macros for true and false. _Bool functions similarly to a normal integer type, with one exception: any assignments to a _Bool that are not 0 (false) are stored as 1 (true). This behavior exists to avoid integer overflows in implicit narrowing conversions. For example, in the following code:

unsigned char b = 256;

if (b) {
	/* do something */
}

Variable b evaluates to false if unsigned char has a size of 8 bits. This is because the value 256 does not fit in the data type, which results in the lower 8 bits of it being used, resulting in a zero value. However, changing the type causes the previous code to behave normally:

_Bool b = 256;

if (b) {
	/* do something */
}

The type _Bool also ensures true values always compare equal to each other:

_Bool a = 1, b = 2;

if (a == b) {
	/* this code will run */
}

Size and pointer difference types[edit]

The C language specification includes the typedefs size_t and ptrdiff_t to represent memory-related quantities. Their size is defined according to the target processor’s arithmetic capabilities, not the memory capabilities, such as available address space. Both of these types are defined in the <stddef.h> header (cstddef in C++).

size_t is an unsigned integer type used to represent the size of any object (including arrays) in the particular implementation. The operator sizeof yields a value of the type size_t. The maximum size of size_t is provided via SIZE_MAX, a macro constant which is defined in the <stdint.h> header (cstdint header in C++). size_t is guaranteed to be at least 16 bits wide. Additionally, POSIX includes ssize_t, which is a signed integer type of the same width as size_t.

ptrdiff_t is a signed integer type used to represent the difference between pointers. It is guaranteed to be valid only against pointers of the same type; subtraction of pointers consisting of different types is implementation-defined.

Interface to the properties of the basic types[edit]

Information about the actual properties, such as size, of the basic arithmetic types, is provided via macro constants in two headers: <limits.h> header (climits header in C++) defines macros for integer types and <float.h> header (cfloat header in C++) defines macros for floating-point types. The actual values depend on the implementation.

Properties of integer types[edit]

• CHAR_BIT – size of the char type in bits (at least 8 bits)
• SCHAR_MIN, SHRT_MIN, INT_MIN, LONG_MIN, LLONG_MIN(C99) – minimum possible value of signed integer types: signed char, signed short, signed int, signed long, signed long long
• SCHAR_MAX, SHRT_MAX, INT_MAX, LONG_MAX, LLONG_MAX(C99) – maximum possible value of signed integer types: signed char, signed short, signed int, signed long, signed long long
• UCHAR_MAX, USHRT_MAX, UINT_MAX, ULONG_MAX, ULLONG_MAX(C99) – maximum possible value of unsigned integer types: unsigned char, unsigned short, unsigned int, unsigned long, unsigned long long
• CHAR_MIN – minimum possible value of char
• CHAR_MAX – maximum possible value of char
• MB_LEN_MAX – maximum number of bytes in a multibyte character

Properties of floating-point types[edit]

• FLT_MIN, DBL_MIN, LDBL_MIN – minimum normalized positive value of float, double, long double respectively
• FLT_TRUE_MIN, DBL_TRUE_MIN, LDBL_TRUE_MIN (C11) – minimum positive value of float, double, long double respectively
• FLT_MAX, DBL_MAX, LDBL_MAX – maximum finite value of float, double, long double, respectively
• FLT_ROUNDS – rounding mode for floating-point operations
• FLT_EVAL_METHOD (C99) – evaluation method of expressions involving different floating-point types
• FLT_RADIX – radix of the exponent in the floating-point types
• FLT_DIG, DBL_DIG, LDBL_DIG – number of decimal digits that can be represented without losing precision by float, double, long double, respectively
• FLT_EPSILON, DBL_EPSILON, LDBL_EPSILON – difference between 1.0 and the next representable value of float, double, long double, respectively
• FLT_MANT_DIG, DBL_MANT_DIG, LDBL_MANT_DIG – number of FLT_RADIX-base digits in the floating-point significand for types float, double, long double, respectively
• FLT_MIN_EXP, DBL_MIN_EXP, LDBL_MIN_EXP – minimum negative integer such that FLT_RADIX raised to a power one less than that number is a normalized float, double, long double, respectively
• FLT_MIN_10_EXP, DBL_MIN_10_EXP, LDBL_MIN_10_EXP – minimum negative integer such that 10 raised to that power is a normalized float, double, long double, respectively
• FLT_MAX_EXP, DBL_MAX_EXP, LDBL_MAX_EXP – maximum positive integer such that FLT_RADIX raised to a power one less than that number is a normalized float, double, long double, respectively
• FLT_MAX_10_EXP, DBL_MAX_10_EXP, LDBL_MAX_10_EXP – maximum positive integer such that 10 raised to that power is a normalized float, double, long double, respectively
• DECIMAL_DIG (C99) – minimum number of decimal digits such that any number of the widest supported floating-point type can be represented in decimal with a precision of DECIMAL_DIG digits and read back in the original floating-point type without changing its value. DECIMAL_DIG is at least 10.

Fixed-width integer types[edit]

The C99 standard includes definitions of several new integer types to enhance the portability of programs.^[2] The already available basic integer types were deemed insufficient, because their actual sizes are implementation defined and may vary across different systems. The new types are especially useful in embedded environments where hardware usually supports only several types and that support varies between different environments. All new types are defined in <inttypes.h> header (cinttypes header in C++) and also are available at <stdint.h> header (cstdint header in C++). The types can be grouped into the following categories:

• Exact-width integer types that are guaranteed to have the same number n of bits across all implementations. Included only if it is available in the implementation.
• Least-width integer types that are guaranteed to be the smallest type available in the implementation, that has at least specified number n of bits. Guaranteed to be specified for at least N=8,16,32,64.
• Fastest integer types that are guaranteed to be the fastest integer type available in the implementation, that has at least specified number n of bits. Guaranteed to be specified for at least N=8,16,32,64.
• Pointer integer types that are guaranteed to be able to hold a pointer. Included only if it is available in the implementation.
• Maximum-width integer types that are guaranteed to be the largest integer type in the implementation.

The following table summarizes the types and the interface to acquire the implementation details (n refers to the number of bits):

Printf and scanf format specifiers[edit]

The <inttypes.h> header (cinttypes in C++) provides features that enhance the functionality of the types defined in the <stdint.h> header. It defines macros for printf format string and scanf format string specifiers corresponding to the types defined in <stdint.h> and several functions for working with the intmax_t and uintmax_t types. This header was added in C99.

Printf format string

The macros are in the format PRI{fmt}{type}. Here {fmt} defines the output formatting and is one of d (decimal), x (hexadecimal), o (octal), u (unsigned) and i (integer). {type} defines the type of the argument and is one of n, FASTn, LEASTn, PTR, MAX, where n corresponds to the number of bits in the argument.

Scanf format string

The macros are in the format SCN{fmt}{type}. Here {fmt} defines the output formatting and is one of d (decimal), x (hexadecimal), o (octal), u (unsigned) and i (integer). {type} defines the type of the argument and is one of n, FASTn, LEASTn, PTR, MAX, where n corresponds to the number of bits in the argument.

Functions

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2011)

Additional floating-point types[edit]

Similarly to the fixed-width integer types, ISO/IEC TS 18661 specifies floating-point types for IEEE 754 interchange and extended formats in binary and decimal:

• _FloatN for binary interchange formats;
• _DecimalN for decimal interchange formats;
• _FloatNx for binary extended formats;
• _DecimalNx for decimal extended formats.

Structures[edit]

Structures aggregate the storage of multiple data items, of potentially differing data types, into one memory block referenced by a single variable. The following example declares the data type struct birthday which contains the name and birthday of a person. The structure definition is followed by a declaration of the variable John that allocates the needed storage.

struct birthday {
	char name[20];
	int day;
	int month;
	int year;
};

struct birthday John;

The memory layout of a structure is a language implementation issue for each platform, with a few restrictions. The memory address of the first member must be the same as the address of structure itself. Structures may be initialized or assigned to using compound literals. A function may directly return a structure, although this is often not efficient at run-time. Since C99, a structure may also end with a flexible array member.

A structure containing a pointer to a structure of its own type is commonly used to build linked data structures:

struct node {
	int val;
	struct node *next;
};

Arrays[edit]

For every type T, except void and function types, there exist the types «array of N elements of type T«. An array is a collection of values, all of the same type, stored contiguously in memory. An array of size N is indexed by integers from 0 up to and including N−1. Here is a brief example:

int cat[10];  // array of 10 elements, each of type int

Arrays can be initialized with a compound initializer, but not assigned. Arrays are passed to functions by passing a pointer to the first element. Multidimensional arrays are defined as «array of array …», and all except the outermost dimension must have compile-time constant size:

int a[10][8];  // array of 10 elements, each of type 'array of 8 int elements'

Pointers[edit]

Every data type T has a corresponding type pointer to T. A pointer is a data type that contains the address of a storage location of a variable of a particular type. They are declared with the asterisk (*) type declarator following the basic storage type and preceding the variable name. Whitespace before or after the asterisk is optional.

char *square;
long *circle;
int *oval;

Pointers may also be declared for pointer data types, thus creating multiple indirect pointers, such as char ** and int ***, including pointers to array types. The latter are less common than an array of pointers, and their syntax may be confusing:

char *pc[10];   // array of 10 elements of 'pointer to char'
char (*pa)[10]; // pointer to a 10-element array of char

The element pc requires ten blocks of memory of the size of pointer to char (usually 40 or 80 bytes on common platforms), but element pa is only one pointer (size 4 or 8 bytes), and the data it refers to is an array of ten bytes (sizeof *pa == 10).

Unions[edit]

A union type is a special construct that permits access to the same memory block by using a choice of differing type descriptions. For example, a union of data types may be declared to permit reading the same data either as an integer, a float, or any other user declared type:

union {
	int i;
	float f;
	struct {
		unsigned int u;
		double d;
	} s;
} u;

The total size of u is the size of u.s – which happens to be the sum of the sizes of u.s.u and u.s.d – since s is larger than both i and f. When assigning something to u.i, some parts of u.f may be preserved if u.i is smaller than u.f.

Reading from a union member is not the same as casting since the value of the member is not converted, but merely read.

Function pointers[edit]

Function pointers allow referencing functions with a particular signature. For example, to store the address of the standard function abs in the variable my_int_f:

int (*my_int_f)(int) = &abs;
// the & operator can be omitted, but makes clear that the "address of" abs is used here

Function pointers are invoked by name just like normal function calls. Function pointers are separate from pointers and void pointers.

Type qualifiers[edit]

The aforementioned types can be characterized further by type qualifiers, yielding a qualified type. As of 2014 and C11, there are four type qualifiers in standard C: const (C89), volatile (C89), restrict (C99) and _Atomic (C11) – the latter has a private name to avoid clashing with user names,^[12] but the more ordinary name atomic can be used if the <stdatomic.h> header is included. Of these, const is by far the best-known and most used, appearing in the standard library and encountered in any significant use of the C language, which must satisfy const-correctness. The other qualifiers are used for low-level programming, and while widely used there, are rarely used by typical programmers.^{[citation needed]}

See also[edit]

• C syntax
• Uninitialized variable
• Integer (computer science)

References[edit]

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia