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alignof operator

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The alignof operator returns the alignment in bytes of the specified type as a value of type size_t.

Syntax

alignof( type )

Remarks

For example:

Expression Value
alignof( char ) 1
alignof( short ) 2
alignof( int ) 4
alignof( long long ) 8
alignof( float ) 4
alignof( double ) 8

The alignof value is the same as the value for sizeof for basic types. Consider, however, this example:

typedef struct { int a; double b; } S;
// alignof(S) == 8

In this case, the alignof value is the alignment requirement of the largest element in the structure.

Similarly, for

typedef __declspec(align(32)) struct { int a; } S;

alignof(S) is equal to 32.

One use for alignof would be as a parameter to one of your own memory-allocation routines. For example, given the following defined structure S, you could call a memory-allocation routine named aligned_malloc to allocate memory on a particular alignment boundary.

typedef __declspec(align(32)) struct { int a; double b; } S;
int n = 50; // array size
S* p = (S*)aligned_malloc(n * sizeof(S), alignof(S));

For more information on modifying alignment, see:

For more information on differences in alignment in code for x86 and x64, see:

Microsoft-specific

alignof and __alignof are synonyms in the Microsoft compiler. Before it became part of the standard in C++11, the Microsoft-specific __alignof operator provided this functionality. For maximum portability, you should use the alignof operator instead of the Microsoft-specific __alignof operator.

For compatibility with previous versions, _alignof is a synonym for __alignof unless compiler option /Za (Disable language extensions) is specified.

See also

Expressions with Unary Operators
Keywords