Q&A Time

If I write the code int i, j; can I assume that (&i + 1) == &j?

Only sometimes. It's not portable, because in EBCDIC, i and j are not adjacent.

While it may be true on most modern arch's and compilers, why would you want to rely on this? Things can get more hairy if you have: char a;int b; alloced on the stack. A lot of modern compilers will use an int to store a for alignment/performance reasons, thus you can't use this trick. If you need reliable in-memory layout, use a struct, and use an implementation dependent pragma to force a certain alignment.