The term "memsize" is often used in our articles. We introduce this term to simplify description of the material. The term "memsize" has appeared as a try to name briefly all the types which are capable of storing pointers' sizes and indexes of the largest arrays. Memsize-type can store the size of a maximum array which can be theoretically allocated within the framework of the given architecture. By memsize-type we understand all simple data types of C/C++ languages which are 32-bit on a 32-bit architecture and 64-bit on a 64-bit one.
Keep in mind that in different data models the term memsize-type includes different types. For example, in Windows systems long type is not memsize-type and in Unix systems with data model LP64 it is. Examples of memsize-types: pointers, size_t, ptrdiff_t, intptr_t, SIZE_T, DWORD_PTR.
References
- Andrey Karpov. About size_t and ptrdiff_t. http://www.viva64.com/en/a/0050/
- MSDN. Standard Types. http://www.viva64.com/go.php?url=338
- MSDN. Windows Data Types. http://www.viva64.com/go.php?url=337
