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NAME

       offsetof - offset of a structure member

SYNOPSIS

       #include <stddef.h>

       size_t offsetof(type, member);

DESCRIPTION

       The  macro  offsetof()  returns the offset of the field member from the
       start of the structure type.

       This macro is useful because the sizes of the  fields  that  compose  a
       structure  can  vary  across  implementations, and compilers may insert
       different numbers of padding bytes between  fields.   Consequently,  an
       element’s  offset  is  not necessarily given by the sum of the sizes of
       the previous elements.

       A compiler error will result  if  member  is  not  aligned  to  a  byte
       boundary (i.e., it is a bit field).

RETURN VALUE

       offsetof()  returns  the  offset  of  the given member within the given
       type, in units of bytes.

CONFORMING TO

       C89, C99, POSIX.1-2001.

EXAMPLE

       On a Linux/i386 system, when compiled using the default gcc(1) options,
       the program below produces the following output:

           $ ./a.out
           offsets: i=0; c=4; d=8 a=16
           sizeof(struct s)=16

   Program source

       #include <stddef.h>
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>

       int
       main(void)
       {
           struct s {
               int i;
               char c;
               double d;
               char a[];
           };

           /* Output is compiler dependent */

           printf("offsets: i=%ld; c=%ld; d=%ld a=%ld\n",
                   (long) offsetof(struct s, i),
                   (long) offsetof(struct s, c),
                   (long) offsetof(struct s, d),
                   (long) offsetof(struct s, a));
           printf("sizeof(struct s)=%ld\n", (long) sizeof(struct s));

           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

COLOPHON

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       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.