What is the smallest size I can make this structure on a 64bit machine?

Question

typedef struct node{
    char one;
    char two;
    struct node *next;
} nodea;

I'm thinking in terms of compiler padding, is there any way I can make the sizeof(nodea) smaller than 16?

Answer 1

You can use the #pragma pack compiler directive http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2e70t5y1%28v=vs.80%29.aspx

 #pragma pack(push)
 #pragma pack(1)
 typedef struct node {
    char one;
    char two;
    struct node* next;
 } nodea;
 #pragma pack(pop)