Compute Minimum Block Size with Header and Alignment

Task

Implement the function min_block_size

• Write a function that takes a size_t representing the number of bytes requested for allocation
• Each block must have a header of type size_t at the beginning of the block
• The total block size (header + requested bytes) must be rounded up to the next multiple of 16 bytes to ensure 16 byte alignment

Function Signature

// Given a size_t number of bytes, return the minimum block size needed to account for the header, the allocation request, and 16-byte alignment.
size_t min_block_size(size_t bytes);

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Example

Requested Bytes	Minimum Block Size
0	0
1	16
8	16
16	32
24	32
100	112
4096	4112

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Code

size_t min_block_size(size_t bytes) {
    if (bytes == 0) return 0;
    int result = 8;
    result += (bytes % 8 == 0) ? bytes : bytes + 8 - bytes % 8;
    if (result % 16 == 0) return result;
    return (result + 8);
}