gnu::aligned(3attr)

✨ gnu::aligned — setting the alignment of an object ✨

okay bestie, gather round, because this is one of those little GNU attributes from the 3attr man page collection and it's lowkey iconic 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

gnu::aligned — literally just: setting the alignment of an object 🎀

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

[[gnu::aligned(alignment)]]
[[gnu::aligned]]

two flavors, take your pick, both slay 💖

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👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

so here's the tea ☕ — you can sprinkle this attribute on a type or on a variable, and what it does is set that thing's alignment in bytes. that's it. that's the whole job bestie, and it does it well 💅

now, if you don't give it an alignment? no stress, it just uses the maximum alignment ✨ and fr fr, that is exactly the same as writing:

[[gnu::aligned(alignof(max_align_t))]]

so yeah, leaving it blank is giving "give me the most alignment you've got" energy 🙈

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🎀 VERSIONS 🎀

the ancestor forms, the OG spellings, in case you're on a compiler that didn't get the memo about the cute [[...]] syntax:

• __attribute__((aligned(alignment)))
• __declspec(align(alignment))

and plot twist — C11 rolled up with its own type specifier, _Alignas(), which has similar semantics. so if you're feeling standards-coded, that one's there for you too 🫶

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⭐ STANDARDS ⭐

GNU. yeah. it's built different.

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🌈 HISTORY 🌈

a little origin story for the girlies 📜 — the glow-up timeline is:

• gcc
• g++
• clang 11
• clang++ 2.8.0

not me being dramatic about compiler versions, i simply think it's important to know where the vibes came from 🦋

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💀 CAVEATS 💀

okay listen, this is the part where we put on our serious face for a sec 😭

• this attribute can increase the natural alignment of a type… but it can't decrease it. periodt. it only goes up, never down, no negotiating 🙅‍♀️
• and the linker may limit the maximum alignment that can be applied — so even if you ask for something absolutely unhinged, the linker might be the one saying "bestie no" 💀

⚠️ so fr fr — alignment requests are a ceiling-less floor, not a free-for-all. you can go bigger, never smaller, and the linker has veto power 👑

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🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

(pssst, if the original page had a SEE ALSO section, everything from it lives right here — nothing skipped, no cap 🫶)

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and that's the whole manual page, bestie, we ate and left no crumbs 💖✨ this gem is from Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2025-06-28 — mwah, go forth and align your objects responsibly 🎀🦋💅