Question

I am working with a system whereby I can send 1 32 bit int at a time. However I need to send two numbers at a time. What is the best way to do this in standard C?

I assume I will have to do some conversion to binary/hex and some masking?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can encode two 16-bit unsigned numbers like this:

unsigned int out = (in1 << 16) | in2;

and decode them like this:

unsigned int in1 = out >> 16;
unsigned int in2 = out & 0xFFFF;

All this assumes that int is at least 32 bits, that in1 and in2 are in the 0-65535 range, and that an unsigned int can be sent across correctly (w.r.t. endianness).