Understanding the sizeof Operator with Literals and Suffixes in C

In this video tutorial, we dive into the nuances of the sizeof operator and how it interacts with various literals in C programming. Understanding how the compiler assigns data types to constant values is essential for memory management and accurate coding.
What you will learn:
• Default Data Types for Literals: Discover why a fractional value like 2.5 is treated as a double (8 bytes) by default, while a whole number like 2 is treated as an int (4 bytes).
• The Character Literal Surprise: Learn why using a character literal (e.g., 'A') with the sizeof operator in C returns the size of an integer (4 bytes) rather than a character (1 byte).
• Using Suffixes to Change Types: We demonstrate how to use suffixes to override default types, such as using f for float (4 bytes), l for long integer (8 bytes), and L for long double (16 bytes on this machine).
• Practical Demonstration: Watch a live code execution to see these concepts in action, resulting in outputs like 8, 4, and 4 for standard literals.
Whether you are preparing for a technical interview or strengthening your C programming foundations, this lecture provides clear insights into how fractional values, whole numbers, and character literals are handled by the compiler.