Memory Layout: Alignment, Padding, and False Sharing
Measure field layout and evaluate cache density and false sharing on the target hardware.
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What this chapter teaches
A struct's size is the sum of its fields. Field order is a style choice. Two independent variables can't slow each other down.
the compiler aligns each field to its type's requirement and pads to get there, so size depends on order — and is rounded up to the struct's own alignment. Worse, the CPU moves memory in 64-byte cache lines, so two logically independent fields that share a line become a single contended unit across cores: writing one invalidates the other on every other core. That's false sharing, and it can make two non-interacting counters scale negatively. Layout is mechanics, not cosmetics.
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