Table of Contents
- 1 Why size of pointer is 4 bytes?
- 2 Why pointers should have data types when their size is always 4 bytes in a 32 bit machine irrespective of the variable they are pointing to?
- 3 Do pointers take space?
- 4 Do all pointers have same size?
- 5 How much memory is required to store a pointer variable?
- 6 How many bytes does it take to represent a pointer?
Why size of pointer is 4 bytes?
Size of a pointer is fixed for a compiler. All pointer types take same number of bytes for a compiler. That is why we get 4 for both ptri and ptrc.
How many bytes does a pointer occupy?
4 bytes
Pointers take up the space needed to hold an address, which is 4 bytes on a 32-bit machine and 8 bytes on a 64-bit machine.
Is a pointer 4 bytes?
Usually it depends upon the word size of underlying processor for example for a 32 bit computer the pointer size can be 4 bytes for a 64 bit computer the pointer size can be 8 bytes. So for a specific architecture pointer size will be fixed. It is common to all data types like int *, float * etc.
Why pointers should have data types when their size is always 4 bytes in a 32 bit machine irrespective of the variable they are pointing to?
An unsigned integer is allocated 4 bytes of memory for its storage on a typical 32-bit system. Thus, pointers to all types of data occupy the same size of memory because the value of a pointer is the memory address – an unsigned integer.
Why size of every pointer is same?
That is because the Processer on a machine has a an address register that these pointers are loaded into, and the size of that address register controls the size of the pointers.
Is a pointer always int?
Nothing is always safe; of course a pointer isn’t just an integer but it is always representable as an integer (it might be an int or a long or even a 30-bit value but you could declare that is an integer ).
Do pointers take space?
How much memory space does a pointer take? Pointers take up to 8 bytes in the 64-bit machine and it also takes up to 4 bytes in the 32-bit machine with the help of a C standard library sizeof operator.
How much memory a pointer variable will occupy?
Just like other variables, a pointer is a variable so, the compiler will reserve some space in memory. All pointer variable irrespective of their base type will occupy the same space in memory. Normally 4 bytes or 2 bytes (On a 16-bit Compiler) are used to store a pointer variable (this may vary from system to system).
Which data type occupies two bytes?
Windows 64-bit applications
| Name | Length |
|---|---|
| char | 1 byte |
| short | 2 bytes |
| int | 4 bytes |
| long | 4 bytes |
Do all pointers have same size?
Generally yes, All pointers to anything, whether they point to a int or a long or a string or an array of strings or a function, point to a single memory address, which is the same size on a machine.
Why pointers should have data types?
The reason why you need the data type for pointers is because the compiler has to know what the size of the memory cell is, among others, the pointer is pointing to. Also type safety cannot be ensured w/o the type. Also, you would have to typecast every pointer when accessing structures from the pointer.
Do all pointers have same size in C?
The size of any type of pointer in C is equal to the size of the integer variable in that system. For example, in a 16 bit system size of integer is 2 bytes which is same as size of pointer. Hence the size of char pointer, int pointer, float pointer, NULL pointer etc are all same.
How much memory is required to store a pointer variable?
Just like other variables, a pointer is a variable so, the compiler will reserve some space in memory. All pointer variable irrespective of their base type will occupy the same space in memory. Normally 4 bytes or 2 bytes (On a 16-bit Compiler) are used to store a pointer variable (this may vary from system to system).
Why do pointers to all types of data occupy the same size?
Thus, pointers to all types of data occupy the same size of memory because the value of a pointer is the memory address – an unsigned integer. However, the variables to which the pointers point to, of course, occupy different sizes of memory blocks according to their types. Illustrates that size of pointers to all data types is same 1
What are the values of pointer variables in C?
The values of pointer variables are unsigned integer numbers which are addresses of other variables. An unsigned integer is allocated 4 bytes of memory for its storage on a typical 32-bit system. Thus, pointers to all types of data occupy the same size of memory because the value of a pointer is the memory address – an unsigned integer.
How many bytes does it take to represent a pointer?
Similarly for 32-bit and 64-bit architecture we need to have pointers with size 4 bytes(32-bit width) and 8 bytes(64-bit width) respectively. Also if a system is 16-bit then it cannot have address location of size more than 16 bits. This will tell you how many bytes it takes to represent a pointer on your system.