Question

Simply put in C and variants (unlike that wuss java with its virtual machine) the size of primitive types on different targets can vary greatly, and there is really no guarantee unless you use the fixed width types defined in stdint.h, and even then your implemenation has to support them.

Anyway hypothetically(because on most modern machines a byte is an octet, for networking purposes I assume(ASCII)) does sizeof return the size of a datatype in bytes or in octets

Answer 1

In C programming, the sizeof operator returns the size of a datatype in bytes. Although a byte is usually equivalent to an octet, there is no guarantee. To ensure consistency, C provides fixed-width integer types defined in stdint.h.

Step-by-step explanation:

In the C programming language and its variants, the size of primitive types can vary on different systems. The sizeof operator returns the size of a datatype in bytes. However, it is important to note that a byte does not always equal an octet.

An octet is a group of 8 bits, and it is commonly used to represent a byte in computer networking and ASCII encoding. Most modern systems use 8 bits per byte, so the sizeof operator would return the size in octets as well. However, there is no guarantee that the size of a byte is always 8 bits, especially on older or specialized systems.

To ensure consistency and portable code, C provides fixed-width integer types defined in the stdint.h header. These types specify the size in bits, such as int8_t for an 8-bit signed integer. Using these types guarantees fixed size across different implementations.