How to define and work with an array of bits in C?

Question

I want to create a very large array on which I write \'0\'s and \'1\'s. I\'m trying to simulate a physical process called random sequential adsorption, where units of length

Answer 1

It's a trade-off:

(1) use 1 byte for each 2 bit value - simple, fast, but uses 4x memory

(2) pack bits into bytes - more complex, some performance overhead, uses minimum memory

If you have enough memory available then go for (1), otherwise consider (2).