Can C arrays contain padding in between elements?

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No, there will never be padding in between elements of an array. That is specifically not allowed. The C99 standard calls array types “An array type describes a contiguously allocated nonempty set of objects…”. For contrast, a structure is “sequentially”, not “contiguously” allocated.

There might be padding before or after an array within a structure; that is another animal entirely. The compiler might do that to aid alignment of the structure, but the C standard doesn’t say anything about that.

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