1offsetof(3) Library Functions Manual offsetof(3)
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6 offsetof - offset of a structure member
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9 Standard C library (libc, -lc)
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12 #include <stddef.h>
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14 size_t offsetof(type, member);
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17 The macro offsetof() returns the offset of the field member from the
18 start of the structure type.
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20 This macro is useful because the sizes of the fields that compose a
21 structure can vary across implementations, and compilers may insert
22 different numbers of padding bytes between fields. Consequently, an
23 element's offset is not necessarily given by the sum of the sizes of
24 the previous elements.
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26 A compiler error will result if member is not aligned to a byte bound‐
27 ary (i.e., it is a bit field).
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30 offsetof() returns the offset of the given member within the given
31 type, in units of bytes.
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34 C11, POSIX.1-2008.
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37 POSIX.1-2001, C89.
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40 On a Linux/i386 system, when compiled using the default gcc(1) options,
41 the program below produces the following output:
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43 $ ./a.out
44 offsets: i=0; c=4; d=8 a=16
45 sizeof(struct s)=16
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47 Program source
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49 #include <stddef.h>
50 #include <stdio.h>
51 #include <stdlib.h>
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53 int
54 main(void)
55 {
56 struct s {
57 int i;
58 char c;
59 double d;
60 char a[];
61 };
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63 /* Output is compiler dependent */
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65 printf("offsets: i=%zu; c=%zu; d=%zu a=%zu\n",
66 offsetof(struct s, i), offsetof(struct s, c),
67 offsetof(struct s, d), offsetof(struct s, a));
68 printf("sizeof(struct s)=%zu\n", sizeof(struct s));
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70 exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
71 }
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75Linux man-pages 6.05 2023-05-03 offsetof(3)