[Dev-C++] Socket Programming - Newbie - sockaddr 16 bytes?

[Peter D. <don...@ne...>]

Hi,

Can someone tell me why it is important to fill out a sockaddr structure 
to 16 bytes.

Reading a book it says that the structure is as follows:

struct sockaddr {
    unsigned short    sa_family;
    char                     sa_data[14];
}

Why fill it out to 16 bytes?  Is this a magic number in computers?

If the address family I choose is AF_INET then how do I know that this 
takes only 2 bytes in the structure?  Is there a way to calculate this?  
How do I know that I need to set sa_data to 14 and not 15?

Any information regarding this would be great.

Many thanks,
Peter.