PROLOG

       This  manual  page  is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of
       this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux  manual  page  for  details  of
       Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME

       stddef.h — standard type definitions

SYNOPSIS

       #include <stddef.h>

DESCRIPTION

       The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any
       conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is  unintentional.
       This volume of POSIX.1‐2008 defers to the ISO C standard.

       The <stddef.h> header shall define the following macros:

       NULL      Null pointer constant.  The macro shall expand to an integer constant expression
                 with the value 0 cast to type void *.

       offsetof(type, member-designator)
                 Integer constant expression of type size_t, the value of which is the offset  in
                 bytes  to  the  structure  member (member-designator), from the beginning of its
                 structure (type).

       The <stddef.h> header shall define the following types:

       ptrdiff_t Signed integer type of the result of subtracting two pointers.

       wchar_t   Integer type whose range of values can represent distinct codes for all  members
                 of the largest extended character set specified among the supported locales; the
                 null character shall have  the  code  value  zero.  Each  member  of  the  basic
                 character  set  shall have a code value equal to its value when used as the lone
                 character in an integer character constant if an implementation does not  define
                 __STDC_MB_MIGHT_NEQ_WC__.

       size_t    Unsigned integer type of the result of the sizeof operator.

       The  implementation shall support one or more programming environments in which the widths
       of ptrdiff_t, size_t, and wchar_t are no greater than the width of type long.   The  names
       of  these  programming  environments  can  be obtained using the confstr() function or the
       getconf utility.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

       None.

RATIONALE

       The ISO C standard does not require the NULL macro to include the cast to type void *  and
       specifies  that  the  NULL macro be implementation-defined. POSIX.1‐2008 requires the cast
       and therefore need not be implementation-defined.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       <sys_types.h>, <wchar.h>

       The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008, confstr()

       The Shell and Utilities volume of POSIX.1‐2008, getconf

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and  reproduced  in  electronic  form  from  IEEE  Std
       1003.1,  2013  Edition,  Standard  for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
       Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013  by  the
       Institute  of  Electrical  and  Electronics  Engineers,  Inc and The Open Group.  (This is
       POSIX.1-2008 with the  2013  Technical  Corrigendum  1  applied.)  In  the  event  of  any
       discrepancy  between  this  version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the
       original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The  original  Standard
       can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .

       Any  typographical  or  formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have
       been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page  format.  To  report
       such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .