Is it possible to declare a bit array in C++?

[Bellweather]

I really want to know what the easiest way to perform a bitmap.

 

[Bellweather]

bmp

 

[singh]

Why do you want to use bit arrays? I would recommend that you use byte arrays and write your own manipulation functions for bits in those arrays.

 

[manly]

Sure, there's a bitset type in the standard library. I'm not a C++ guru so look up the usage for yourself.

singh, why would you reinvent the wheel when the standard library already provides one?

 

[singh]

I advise anyone against using C++ bit-fields because they can be very inefficient (depending on compiler's implementation). Unless the program saves a significant amount of memory by using bit-fields, I would recommend using bytes instead.

As for re-inventing the wheel, the poster does not seem to have a good grasp on bit-fields, so I think it would be better if he at least tried to do the operations himself before persuing the std library solutions.

 

[Armitage]

I have a nice binary vector class that I wrote. I could share it if you're interested.
What I use it for is a distributed satellite coverage program I'm working on. I have very large arrays of binary data (whether or not a point on the earth is visible to a particular satellite at a particular time) on different machines in a cluster.
Now, when I send them back over the network, I'm only sending about 1/8th as much data as if I had used a vector of bool or char type. Then I can consolidate the data 32 bits at a time with & and | operators.