C Language Data Types
Remarks
- While
charis required to be 1 byte, 1 byte is not required to be 8 bits (often also called an octet), even though most of modern computer platforms define it as 8 bits. The implementation's number of bits percharis provided by theCHAR_BITmacro, defined in<limits.h>. POSIX does require 1 byte to be 8 bits. - Fixed width integer types should be use sparsely, C's built-in types are designed to be natural on every architecture, the fixed width types should only be used if you explicitly need a specifically sized integer (for example for networking).
