4 General principles [intro]

4.4 The C++ memory model [intro.memory]

1
#
The fundamental storage unit in the C++ memory model is the byte.
A byte is at least large enough to contain any member of the basic execution character set ([lex.charset]) and the eight-bit code units of the Unicode UTF-8 encoding form and is composed of a contiguous sequence of bits,4 the number of which is implementation-defined.
The least significant bit is called the low-order bit; the most significant bit is called the high-order bit.
The memory available to a C++ program consists of one or more sequences of contiguous bytes.
Every byte has a unique address.
2
#
[ Note
:
The representation of types is described in [basic.types].
— end note
 ]
3
#
A memory location is either an object of scalar type or a maximal sequence of adjacent bit-fields all having nonzero width.
[ Note
:
Various features of the language, such as references and virtual functions, might involve additional memory locations that are not accessible to programs but are managed by the implementation.
— end note
 ]
Two or more threads of execution ([intro.multithread]) can access separate memory locations without interfering with each other.
4
#
[ Note
:
Thus a bit-field and an adjacent non-bit-field are in separate memory locations, and therefore can be concurrently updated by two threads of execution without interference.
The same applies to two bit-fields, if one is declared inside a nested struct declaration and the other is not, or if the two are separated by a zero-length bit-field declaration, or if they are separated by a non-bit-field declaration.
It is not safe to concurrently update two bit-fields in the same struct if all fields between them are also bit-fields of nonzero width.
— end note
 ]
5
#
[ Example
:
A structure declared as
struct {
  char a;
  int b:5,
  c:11,
  :0,
  d:8;
  struct {int ee:8;} e;
}
contains four separate memory locations: The field a and bit-fields d and e.ee are each separate memory locations, and can be modified concurrently without interfering with each other.
The bit-fields b and c together constitute the fourth memory location.
The bit-fields b and c cannot be concurrently modified, but b and a, for example, can be.
— end example
 ]
4)
The number of bits in a byte is reported by the macro CHAR_­BIT in the header <climits>.