Wednesday morning, July 12, 2023
Overview:
ssize_t is a data type used to represent signed sizes. It is often used as the return type or parameter type of functions in file manipulation and network programming.
head File:
ssize_t defined in <sys/types.h> the header file.
meaning:
It is a signed integer type that can be used to represent the number of bytes or the size of data. It is designed to accommodate data sizes common in file operations and network programming.
ssize_t Used to denote return values or parameters of the following functions:
- In file I/O operations, such as
read(),write(),pread(),pwrite(). - In socket programming, such as
send(),recv(),sendto(),recvfrom(). - In some other system calls, such as
lseek(),ftruncate().
The difference with size_t:
In most cases, ssize_t and size_t have the same size (usually 4 bytes or 8 bytes), ssize_t but signed size_t instead of unsigned.
So the first s in ssize_t means "signal", which means "sign", which means signed