What is size_t in C?

Question

I am getting confused with size_t in C. I know that it is returned by the sizeof operator. But what exactly is it? Is it a data type?

Let\'

Answer 1

size_t and int are not interchangeable. For instance on 64-bit Linux size_t is 64-bit in size (i.e. sizeof(void*)) but int is 32-bit.

Also note that size_t is unsigned. If you need signed version then there is ssize_t on some platforms and it would be more relevant to your example.

As a general rule I would suggest using int for most general cases and only use size_t/ssize_t when there is a specific need for it (with mmap() for example).