Difference between size_t and unsigned int?
if it is use to represent non negative value so why we not using
unsigned int
instead ofsize_t
Because unsigned int
is not the only unsigned integer type. size_t
could be any of unsigned char
, unsigned short
, unsigned int
, unsigned long
or unsigned long long
, depending on the implementation.
Second question is that
size_t
andunsigned int
are interchangeable or not and if not then why?
They aren't interchangeable, for the reason explained above ^^
.
And can anyone give me a good example of size_t and its brief working ?
I don't quite get what you mean by "its brief working". It works like any other unsigned type (in particular, like the type it's typedeffed to). You are encouraged to use size_t
when you are describing the size of an object. In particular, the sizeof
operator and various standard library functions, such as strlen()
, return size_t
.
Bonus: here's a good article about size_t
(and the closely related ptrdiff_t
type). It reasons very well why you should use it.
There are 5 standard unsigned integer types in C:
unsigned char
unsigned short
unsigned int
unsigned long
unsigned long long
with various requirements for their sizes and ranges (briefly, each type's range is a subset of the next type's range, but some of them may have the same range).
size_t
is a typedef
(i.e., an alias) for some unsigned type, (probably one of the above but possibly an extended unsigned integer type, though that's unlikely). It's the type yielded by the sizeof
operator.
On one system, it might make sense to use unsigned int
to represent sizes; on another, it might make more sense to use unsigned long
or unsigned long long
. (size_t
is unlikely to be either unsigned char
or unsigned short
, but that's permitted).
The purpose of size_t
is to relieve the programmer from having to worry about which of the predefined types is used to represent sizes.
Code that assumes sizeof
yields an unsigned int
would not be portable. Code that assumes it yields a size_t
is more likely to be portable.
size_t
has a specific restriction.
Quoting from http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/cstring/size_t/ :
Alias of one of the fundamental unsigned integer types.
It is a type able to represent the size of any object in bytes: size_t is the type returned by the sizeof operator and is widely used in the standard library to represent sizes and counts.
It is not interchangeable with unsigned int
because the size of int
is specified by the data model. For example LLP64 uses a 32-bit int
and ILP64 uses a 64-bit int
.