bit manipulation

[rrlangly]

hi,

I have a structure like the following that I'm trying to assign characters to and send across the network.

struct my_data {
    __be32 name; // this is a 4 byte field
    unsigned char version:8;
};

I was trying to assign the letters a, b, c, and d using bit shifting to these fields but don't beleive I have this correct. Can anyone help out here?

    
    struct my_data *dat;
    // alloc data struct here ...

    dat->letA = (0x61 << 0);
    dat->letB = (0x62 << 0);
    dat->letC = (0x63 << 0);
    dat->letD = (0x64 << 0);

    dat->version = 0x01;

[tabstop]

Why do you think dat->letA exists? Or letB, or letC, or letD? Did you define __be32 as a union?

[iMalc]

Also, why do you have a :8 at the end of the declaration of version? It has no effect in this case.
Are you using sizeof(my_data) anywhere? What value do you get and what value were you expecting?
Please tell us what you are really trying to do.

[rrlangly]

Why do you think dat->letA exists? Or letB, or letC, or letD? Did you define __be32 as a union?

I'm sorry, that should read ...

    dat->name = (0x61 << 0);
    dat->name = (0x62 << 0);
    dat->name = (0x63 << 0);
    dat->name = (0x64 << 0);

so that this 4 byte should should end up as 'abcd'. I am just trying to send this across the network and make sure my order is correct so that it ends up at the other host as expected. In that snippet, I'm trying to efficiently assign characters to each field.

And I just put the 8 there for readability, but I do see your point.

[tabstop]

Do you know what << does? Why are you always shifting by 0? You should know how many bits you want to move your character to get it in the right "place".

[Subsonics]

You should be able to assign the characters like below, without any bit shifting.

dat->name = 'abcd';

Keep byte order in mind though, you might want 'dcba'.