Standard Types

The Microsoft run-time library defines the following standard types.

Type Description Declared In
clock_t structure Stores time values; used by clock. TIME.H
_complex structure Stores real and imaginary parts of complex numbers; used by _cabs. MATH.H
_dev_t short or unsigned integer Represents device handles. SYS\TYPES.H
div_t, ldiv_t structures Store values returned by div and ldiv, respectively. STDLIB.H
_exception structure Stores error information for _matherr. MATH.H
FILE structure Stores information about current state of stream; used in all stream I/O operations. STDIO.H
_finddata_t, _wfinddata_t, _wfinddatai64_t structures _finddata_t stores file-attribute information returned by _findfirst and_findnext. _wfinddata_t stores file-attribute information returned by _wfindfirst and _wfindnext. _wfinddatai64_t stores file-attribute information returned by _wfindfirsti64 and _wfindnexti64. _finddata_t: IO.H
_wfinddata_t: IO.H, WCHAR.H
_wfinddatai64_t: IO.H, WCHAR.H
_FPIEEE_RECORD structure Contains information pertaining to IEEE floating-point exception; passed to user-defined trap handler by _fpieee_flt. FPIEEE.H
fpos_t
(long integer, __int64, or structure, depending on the target platform)
Used by fgetpos and fsetpos to record information for uniquely specifying every position within a file. STDIO.H
_HEAPINFO structure Contains information about next heap entry for _heapwalk. MALLOC.H
jmp_buf array Used by setjmp and longjmp to save and restore program environment. SETJMP.H
lconv structure Contains formatting rules for numeric values in different countries. LOCALE.H
_off_t long integer Represents file-offset value. SYS\TYPES.H
_onexit_t pointer Returned by _onexit. STDLIB.H
_PNH pointer to function Type of argument to _set_new_handler. NEW.H
ptrdiff_t integer Result of subtraction of two pointers. STDDEF.H
sig_atomic_t integer Type of object that can be modified as atomic entity, even in presence of asynchronous interrupts; used with signal. SIGNAL.H
size_t unsigned integer Result of sizeof operator. STDDEF.H and other include files
_stat structure Contains file-status information returned by _stat and _fstat. SYS\STAT.H
time_t long integer Represents time values in mktime and time. TIME.H
_timeb structure Used by _ftime to store current system time. SYS\TIMEB.H
tm structure Used by asctime, gmtime, localtime, mktime, and strftime to store and retrieve time information. TIME.H
_utimbuf structure Stores file access and modification times used by _utime to change file-modification dates. SYS\UTIME.H
va_list structure Used to hold information needed by va_arg and va_end macros. Called function declares variable of type va_list that can be passed as argument to another function. STDARG.H
wchar_t internal type of a wide character Useful for writing portable programs for international markets. STDDEF.H, STDLIB.H
wctrans_t integer Represents locale-specific character mappings. WCTYPE.H
wctype_t integer Can represent all characters of any national character set. WCHAR.H
wint_t integer Type of data object that can hold any wide character or wide end-of-file value. WCHAR.H