My GNU-Linux platform (debian stretch) has the C types u_int8_t, u_int16_t, u_int32_t and u_int64_t defined in the file sys/types.h while uint8_t, uint16_t, uint32_t and uint64_t are defined in stdint.h. I have found these types useful in the course of practicing X86-64 assembly language and interacting with C. Is there any reason why I should prefer one header file over the other (be it 'best practice', portability etc.)?. Is the answer any different for C++?
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Sven Williamson
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1[This link](http://stackoverflow.com/a/5163960/6879826) to an answer for a related question suggests that these names [originated with BSD](http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/release-wranglers/2004-August/000923.html). – ad absurdum Mar 23 '17 at 14:52
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stdint.h is standard C, which maps to cstdint in standard C++.
sys/types.h is not portable C.
Bathsheba
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@ryyker [cstdint header](http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/header/cstdint). – François Andrieux Mar 23 '17 at 14:36
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@JohnZwinck-- [`sys/types.h` is POSIX](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/sys/types.h.html), but there are no `u_intN_t` types specified there. – ad absurdum Mar 23 '17 at 14:46
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[Related](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13642827/cstdint-vs-stdint-h). – PaperBirdMaster Mar 23 '17 at 14:52
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Technically `int8_t` etc. are not required by compilers either. The `_least` ones are. They're likely to be there but they're not required by the C standard (I don't know about C++). – Pryftan Feb 14 '22 at 11:47