Converting integer to a bit representation

Question

How can I convert a integer to its bit representation. I want to take an integer and return a vector that has contains 1\'s and 0\'s of the integer\'s bit representation.

Answer 1

Here is a version that works with negative numbers:

string get_bits(unsigned int x)
{
  string ret;
  for (unsigned int mask=0x80000000; mask; mask>>=1) {
    ret += (x & mask) ? "1" : "0";
  }
  return ret;
}

The string can, of course, be replaced by a vector or indexed for bit values.