std::size_t

 

C++

Compiler support

Freestanding and hosted

Language

Standard library headers

Named requirements

Feature test macros (C++20)

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Diagnostics library

General utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

Algorithms library

Numerics library

Localizations library

Input/output library

Filesystem library (C++17)

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

Technical specifications

Symbols index

External libraries

 

Utilities library

Language support Type support (basic types, RTTI, type traits)      Library feature-test macros (C++20) Dynamic memory management Program utilities Error handling Coroutine support (C++20) Variadic functions launder (C++17) initializer_list (C++11) source_location (C++20) Three-way comparison (C++20) three_way_comparablethree_way_comparable_with (C++20)(C++20) strong_ordering (C++20) weak_ordering (C++20) partial_ordering (C++20) common_comparison_category (C++20) compare_three_way_result (C++20) compare_three_way (C++20) strong_order (C++20) weak_order (C++20) partial_order (C++20) compare_strong_order_fallback (C++20) compare_weak_order_fallback (C++20) compare_partial_order_fallback (C++20) is_eqis_neqis_ltis_lteqis_gtis_gteq (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)(C++20)(C++20)(C++20)

General utilities Date and time Function objects bitset Formatting library (C++20) hash (C++11) integer_sequence (C++14) Relational operators (deprecated in C++20) rel_ops::operator!=rel_ops::operator> rel_ops::operator<=rel_ops::operator>= Integer comparison functions cmp_equalcmp_lesscmp_less_than (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)    cmp_not_equalcmp_greatercmp_greater_than (C++20)(C++20)(C++20) in_range (C++20) Swap and type operations swap ranges::swap (C++20) exchange (C++14) declval (C++11) forward (C++11) move (C++11) move_if_noexcept (C++11) as_const (C++17) to_underlying (C++23) Common vocabulary types pair tuple (C++11) optional (C++17) any (C++17) variant (C++17) tuple_size (C++11) tuple_element (C++11) apply (C++17) make_from_tuple (C++17) Elementary string conversions to_chars (C++17) from_chars (C++17) chars_format (C++17) Stacktrace stacktrace_entry (C++23) basic_stacktrace (C++23)

 

Type support

Basic types
Fundamental types
Fixed width integer types (C++11)
ptrdiff_t size_t max_align_t (C++11) byte (C++17)	nullptr_t (C++11) offsetof NULL
Numeric limits
numeric_limits
C numeric limits interface
Runtime type information
type_info type_index (C++11)	bad_typeid bad_cast
Type traits
Type categories
is_void (C++11) is_null_pointer (C++14) is_array (C++11) is_pointer (C++11) is_enum (C++11) is_union (C++11) is_class (C++11) is_function (C++11)	is_object (C++11) is_scalar (C++11) is_compound (C++11) is_integral (C++11) is_floating_point (C++11) is_fundamental (C++11) is_arithmetic (C++11)
is_reference (C++11)
is_lvalue_reference (C++11)
is_rvalue_reference (C++11)
is_member_pointer (C++11)
is_member_object_pointer (C++11)
is_member_function_pointer (C++11)

Type properties
is_const (C++11) is_volatile (C++11) is_empty (C++11) is_polymorphic (C++11) is_final (C++14) is_abstract (C++11) is_aggregate (C++17) is_trivial (C++11)	is_trivially_copyable (C++11) is_standard_layout (C++11) is_literal_type (C++11)(until C++20) is_pod (C++11)(deprecated in C++20) is_signed (C++11) is_unsigned (C++11) is_bounded_array (C++20) is_unbounded_array (C++20) is_scoped_enum (C++23)
has_unique_object_representations (C++17)
Type trait constants
integral_constantbool_constanttrue_typefalse_type (C++11)(C++17)(C++11)(C++11)
Metafunctions
conjunction (C++17)
disjunction (C++17)
negation (C++17)
Constant evaluation context
is_constant_evaluated (C++20)

Supported operations
is_constructibleis_trivially_constructibleis_nothrow_constructible (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) is_default_constructibleis_trivially_default_constructibleis_nothrow_default_constructible (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) is_copy_constructibleis_trivially_copy_constructibleis_nothrow_copy_constructible (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) is_move_constructibleis_trivially_move_constructibleis_nothrow_move_constructible (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) is_assignableis_trivially_assignableis_nothrow_assignable (C++11)(C++11)(C++11)	is_copy_assignableis_trivially_copy_assignableis_nothrow_copy_assignable (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) is_move_assignableis_trivially_move_assignableis_nothrow_move_assignable (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) is_destructibleis_trivially_destructibleis_nothrow_destructible (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) has_virtual_destructor (C++11) is_swappable_withis_swappableis_nothrow_swappable_withis_nothrow_swappable (C++17)(C++17)(C++17)(C++17)
Relationships and property queries
is_same (C++11) is_base_of (C++11) is_convertibleis_nothrow_convertible (C++11)(C++20) is_layout_compatible (C++20) is_pointer_interconvertible_base_of (C++20) is_pointer_interconvertible_with_class (C++20) is_corresponding_member (C++20)	alignment_of (C++11) rank (C++11) extent (C++11) is_invocableis_invocable_ris_nothrow_invocableis_nothrow_invocable_r (C++17)(C++17)(C++17)(C++17)
Type modifications
remove_cvremove_constremove_volatile (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) add_cvadd_constadd_volatile (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) make_signed (C++11) make_unsigned (C++11)	remove_reference (C++11) add_lvalue_referenceadd_rvalue_reference (C++11)(C++11) remove_pointer (C++11) add_pointer (C++11) remove_extent (C++11) remove_all_extents (C++11)
Type transformations
aligned_storage (C++11) aligned_union (C++11) decay (C++11) remove_cvref (C++20) enable_if (C++11) void_t (C++17)	conditional (C++11) common_type (C++11) common_reference (C++20) underlying_type (C++11) result_ofinvoke_result (C++11)(until C++20)(C++17) type_identity (C++20)

 

Defined in header <cstddef>
Defined in header <cstdio>
Defined in header <cstdlib>
Defined in header <cstring>
Defined in header <ctime>
Defined in header <cuchar>		(since C++17)
Defined in header <cwchar>
typedef /*implementation-defined*/ size_t;

std::size_t is the unsigned integer type of the result of the sizeof operator as well as the sizeof... operator and the alignof operator (since C++11).

The bit width of std::size_t is not less than 16.

(since C++11)

Notes

std::size_t can store the maximum size of a theoretically possible object of any type (including array). A type whose size cannot be represented by std::size_t is ill-formed (since C++14) On many platforms (an exception is systems with segmented addressing) std::size_t can safely store the value of any non-member pointer, in which case it is synonymous with std::uintptr_t.

std::size_t is commonly used for array indexing and loop counting. Programs that use other types, such as unsigned int, for array indexing may fail on, e.g. 64-bit systems when the index exceeds UINT_MAX or if it relies on 32-bit modular arithmetic.

When indexing C++ containers, such as std::string, std::vector, etc, the appropriate type is the member typedef size_type provided by such containers. It is usually defined as a synonym for std::size_t.

Example

Run this code

#include <cstddef>
#include <iostream>
#include <array>
 
int main()
{
    std::array<std::size_t,10> a;
    std::size_t i{};
 
    for (i = 0; i != a.size(); ++i)
        std::cout << (a[i] = i) << ' ';
    std::cout << "│ i = " << i << '\n';
 
    for (i = a.size()-1; i < a.size(); --i)
        std::cout << a[i] << ' ';
    std::cout << "│ i = " << i << '\n';
}

Possible output:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 │ i = 10
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 │ i = 18446744073709551615

See also

ptrdiff_t	signed integer type returned when subtracting two pointers (typedef)
offsetof	byte offset from the beginning of a standard-layout type to specified member (function macro)
integer literals	decimal, octal, or hexadecimal numbers of integer type (C++11)
C documentation for size_t