In C++, a byte is the space occupied by a char
object. The number of bits in a byte is given by CHAR_BIT
, which is defined in climits
and required to be at least 8. While most modern systems have 8-bit bytes, and POSIX requires CHAR_BIT
to be exactly 8, there are some systems where CHAR_BIT
is greater than 8 i.e a single byte may be comprised of 8, 16, 32 or 64 bits.