C/C++ packing signed char into int

Question

I have need to pack four signed bytes into 32-bit integral type. this is what I came up to:

int32_t byte(int8_t c) { return (unsigned char)c; }

int pack(cha         


        

Answer 1

You could also let the compiler do the work for you.

union packedchars {
  struct {
    char v1,v2,v3,v4;
  }
  int data;
};

packedchars value;
value.data = 0;
value.v1 = 'a';
value.v2 = 'b;

Etc.