System.Boolean Question.

[Tyrone Chou]

hello, everybody.

today, i read msdn like usual, suddenly i found variable with type of
System.Boolean should take up 2 Bytes. it surprised me a lot. why a
boolean value should take up 2 bytes? in my option, 1 bit should be ok


// code.
if (value == ASC(0)) {
return System.Boolean.FALSE;
} else {
return System.Boolean.TRUE;
}



Best Regards,

Tyrone Chou
3/10/2006

 

[Daniel O'Connell [C# MVP]]

hello, everybody.

today, i read msdn like usual, suddenly i found variable with type of
System.Boolean should take up 2 Bytes. it surprised me a lot. why a
boolean value should take up 2 bytes? in my option, 1 bit should be ok

Well, a bit is out of the question. While it is nice space wise, accesing a
single bit is likely far more expensive than the additional few bits used to
store it. Space isn't everything.

Also, FWIW, I'm pretty sure the base boolean type is 4 bytes, because modern
procesors work with groups of 4 bytes better than they do with one.

// code.
if (value == ASC(0)) {
return System.Boolean.FALSE;
} else {
return System.Boolean.TRUE;
}

I don't see why this code is here. Did you have a question with regards to
it?

 

[Mattias Sjögren]

today, i read msdn like usual, suddenly i found variable with type of

System.Boolean should take up 2 Bytes. it surprised me a lot. why a
boolean value should take up 2 bytes?

It doesn't, it takes one byte (the smallest size you can address). You
can check that yourself with sizeof(bool). Any MSND topics that says
otherwise are wrong. If you want to store a lot of boolean values with
just a single bit each, use a BitArray.


Mattias