Question

How do I handle a 4-byte char array as a typical int in ANSI C?

Some context:

I’m parsing a binary file, where I need to read 4-bytes unsigned integers.

I want to make sure that, no matter what platform this parser is compiled in, an “int” is always 4 bytes long.

I’ve read about uint32_t & friends, but I’m limited to ANSI C.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

throw some preprocessor commands in there

#include <limits.h>

#if LONG_BIT == 32
    long buffer [BUFFER_SIZE];
#elif WORD_BIT == 32
    int buffer [BUFFER_SIZE];
#endif

you also could use sizeof(int) during runtime.