I have a struct with three variables: two unsigned ints and an unsigned char. From my understanding, a c++ char is always 1 byte regardless of what operating system it is on. The same can't be said for other datatypes. I am looking for a way to normalize POD's so that when saved into a binary file, the resulting file is readable on any operating system that the code is compiled for. I changed my struct to use a 1-byte alignment by adding #pragma as follows: #pragma pack(push, 1) struct test { int a; } #pragma pack(pop) but that doesn't necessarily mean that int a is exactly 4 bytes on every os, I don't think? Is there a way to ensure that a file saved from my code will always be readable?