Follow this link for a great article on byte alignment.

The deal is the VC++ compiler will sometimes pad your data structures automatically so that different variables start on word boundaries.

In VC++, you can bypass the automatic compiler padding. An example follows.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

// In this example, the C++ compiler will actually pad
// the PaddedStruct structure definition with unnamed variables
// so that shorts start on word boundaries.
// So between c and d, an extra, unnamed 1 byte variable
// of type char will be added in automatically by the compiler.
// This is done so that application performance is better,
// but sometimes, you don't want that.

// To get your structures to be laid out in memory
// exactly as you'd like, with no padding, you have to change
// compiler behaviour with some #pragmas.  This example shows how.

// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_structure_alignment

// Here is an example of a struct that gets AUTOMATICALLY
// padded out with an extra byte.
struct PaddedStruct
{
	char a;
	char b;
	char c;

 /* char PADDING; */ // the COMPILER will add in an extra byte here
                     // so the short gets started on a 2-byte boundary
	short d;
};

// Here is how you force the compiler to NOT add that extra PADDING char:
// Use the #pragma pack preprocessor directive to alter VC++ compiler behavior!
#pragma pack(push)  /* push current alignment to stack */
#pragma pack(1)     /* set alignment to 1 byte boundary */
struct UNPaddedStruct
{
	char a;
	char b;
	char c;
	short d;
};
#pragma pack(pop)   /* revert to default compiler behavior */

int main()
{
    cout << "sizeof(paddedStruct) " << sizeof(PaddedStruct) << endl;	    // should be 5, but its actually 6

    cout << "sizeof(UNpaddedStruct) " << sizeof(UNPaddedStruct) << endl;	// WILL be 5, b/c of #pragma

    return 0;
}

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