title: getting size of primitive data types in python
body: <p>I am having a lot of confusion using the <code>sys.getsizeof</code> function in python. All I want to find out is that for say a floating point value, is the system using 4 or 8 bytes (i.e. single or double precision in C terms).</p>
  
  <p>I do the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import sys
  
  x = 0.0
  sys.getsizeof(x)  # Returns 24
  
  type(x) # returns float
  
  sys.getsizeof(float)  # Returns 400.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How can I simply find out the how many bytes are actually used for the floating point representation. I know it should be 8 bytes but how can I verify this (something like the <code>sizeof</code> operator in C++)</p>