#pragma pack effect

Question

I was wondering if someone could explain to me what the #pragma pack preprocessor statement does, and more importantly, why one would want to use it.

I

Answer 1

Note that there are other ways of achieving data consistency that #pragma pack offers (for instance some people use #pragma pack(1) for structures that should be sent across the network). For instance, see the following code and its subsequent output:

#include 

struct a {
    char one;
    char two[2];
    char eight[8];
    char four[4];
};

struct b { 
    char one;
    short two;
    long int eight;
    int four;
};

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    struct a twoa[2] = {}; 
    struct b twob[2] = {}; 
    printf("sizeof(struct a): %i, sizeof(struct b): %i\n", sizeof(struct a), sizeof(struct b));
    printf("sizeof(twoa): %i, sizeof(twob): %i\n", sizeof(twoa), sizeof(twob));
}

The output is as follows: sizeof(struct a): 15, sizeof(struct b): 24 sizeof(twoa): 30, sizeof(twob): 48

Notice how the size of struct a is exactly what the byte count is, but struct b has padding added (see this for details on the padding). By doing this as opposed to the #pragma pack you can have control of converting the "wire format" into the appropriate types. For instance, "char two[2]" into a "short int" et cetera.