Is the size of a struct required to be an exact multiple of the alignment of that struct?

Question

Once again, I\'m questioning a longstanding belief.

Until today, I believed that the alignment of the following struct would normally be 4 and the size would normall

Answer 1

The standard says very little about padding and alignment. Very little is guaranteed. About the only thing you can bet on is that the first element is at the beginning of the structure. After that...alignment and padding can be anything.