• What is data alignment?
	○ Data alignment is one of the optimization techniques used to achieve good performance.
	○ Data alignment is the placement of data in memory so that the CPU can access it efficiently.

• Data alignment example in c++:
	○ In c++, structs and classes are allocated as a contiguous block of memory with each element having its own size, offset, and alignment. 
	○ Let's assume a 64 bit CPU is being used.
		§ Let's also assume the program is a Book.
			□ Code:

#ifndef DATA_ALIGNMENT_H #define DATA_ALIGNMENT_H #include // A size total of 40 bytes with padding for this class. // On the other hand, adding attribute((packed)) at the end of this class object // will be the total size of 34 bytes. class dataAlignment { public: char *title; // 8 bytes char *author; // 8 bytes char *body; // 8 bytes bool is_published; // 1 byte bool is_member_only; // 1 byte int no_comments; // 4 bytes int no_claps; // 4 bytes }; #endif

• Data alignment is achieved by dividing the allocated memory into equal-sized segments.
	○ Note: each size corresponds to the maximum alignment.

• Padding:
	○ Padding is the technique of adding extra bytes to a struct or class to align its data members to specific boundaries.
		§ Padding is done so that data can be accessed efficiently by the processor.
		§ Data from memory is fetched in chunk fixed sizes, such as 8 or 4 bytes.
		§ Padding can improve the performance of a program.
	
• Greedy Alignment in c++:
	○ Greedy alignment is a technique used to minimize padding by ordering the data members of a class in decreasing order of size.
		§ The largest data members are placed first in the class or struct.

• Padding compression:
	○ Using packed attribute tells the compiler to place data members without padding bytes in between.
	○ Packed attribute can reduce the size of the class or struct.
	○ However, it does not guarantee data alignment and may degrade performance.
		§ NOTE: Having a lot of RAM and using packed attribute. 
		§ A packed class or struct requries more work for the CPU to get the remaining bytes.
		§ The compiler will apply padding bytes automatically.