I expected the size of the following array initialization to be 32. 1 byte characters, 2 bytes for each item in the list, 16 items....= 32. However it is 128 bytes. Why?
char* cmds[] = {"AQ", "BD", "LS", "TW", "AS", "CP", "TR", "CO", "BF", "MS", "SR", "TL", "WT", "PM", "TE", "TC"};
printf("%li\n", sizeof(cmds));
//result is 128
//size of list is 16
//8 bytes per item in the list
//why?
That's because you have an array of pointers to char. Every pointer is 8-byte (on x64), so 16 pointers x 8 bytes = 128 bytes.
You've got an array of pointers to strings and the architecture you're compiling on has a 8-byte pointer size. 8 bytes times 16 pointers equals 128 bytes.
Also, if the array wouldn't be one of pointers but of normal chars, since you don't have one character, but multiple per element, then each element would hold three chars, including the NULL at the end. So you would have 16*3=48 bytes.
"AQ"is a three-byte literal.char cmds[][3] = { ... };would fix the issue.