Memory layout of struct having bitfields

Question

I have this C struct: (representing an IP datagram)

struct ip_dgram
{
    unsigned int ver   : 4;
    unsigned int hlen  : 4;
    unsigned int stype : 8;
            


        

Answer 1

For Chinese users, I think you can refer blog for more details, really good.

In summary, due to endianness, there is byte order as well as bit order. Bit order is the order how each bit of one byte saved in memory. Bit order has same rule with byte order in sense of endianness issue.

For your picture, it's designed in network order which is big endian. So your struct defination is actually for big endian. Per your output, your PC is little endian, so you need change struct field orders when use.

The way to show each bits is incorrect since when get by char, the bit order has changed from machine order (little endian in your case) to normal order which we human use. You may change it as following per refered blog.

void
dump_native_bits_storage_layout(unsigned char *p, int bytes_num)
{

    union flag_t {
        unsigned char c;
        struct base_flag_t {
            unsigned int p7:1,
                        p6:1,
                        p5:1,
                        p4:1,
                        p3:1,
                        p2:1,
                        p1:1,
                        p0:1;
        } base;
    } f;

    for (int i = 0; i < bytes_num; i++) {
        f.c = *(p + i);
        printf("%d%d%d%d %d%d%d%d ",
                        f.base.p7,
                        f.base.p6, 
                        f.base.p5, 
                        f.base.p4, 
                        f.base.p3,
                        f.base.p2, 
                        f.base.p1, 
                        f.base.p0);
    }
    printf("\n");
}

//prints 16 bits at a time
void print_dgram(struct ip_dgram dgram)
{
    unsigned char* ptr = (unsigned short int*)&dgram;
    int i,j;
    //print only 10 words
    for(i=0 ; i<10 ; i++)
    {
        dump_native_bits_storage_layout(ptr, 1);
        /* for(j=7 ; j>=0 ; j--)
        {
            if( (*ptr) & (1<